For all other obstacles either affect the body only, which is a dead thing; or, except through opinion and the yielding of the reason itself, they do not crush nor do any harm of any kind; for if they did, he who felt it would immediately become bad.
Marcus Aurelius reflects on the nature of external obstacles, asserting that true harm only arises from one's own judgment or the surrender of reason.
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The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth.
But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite.
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