Marcus Aurelius: “How cruel it is not to allow men to strive After the things which appear to them to be suitable to their nature and…”

As thou intendest to live when them art gone out, ... so it is in thy power to live here.

What a power man has to do nothing except what God will approve, and to accept all that God may give him.

Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind; but, through their favor, there never…

In the application of thy principles thou must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator; for the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.