Let the court and philosophy now be to thee step-mother and mother: return to philosophy frequently and repose in her, through whom what thou meetest with in the court appears to thee tolerable, and thou appearest tolerable in the court.
Marcus Aurelius advises frequent engagement with philosophy, likening it to a comforting mother, to make the demands of court life more bearable and to maintain one's integrity within it.
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There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite.
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal!
But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
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