For thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these,--What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving, and whatever else of the kind makes us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power.
Reflecting on self-control, Marcus Aurelius warns that excessive curiosity about others distracts from one's own inner governance.
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But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
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.
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