Consider that he who would not have the bad man do wrong, is like the man who would not have the fig-tree to bear juice in the figs, and infants to cry, and the horse to neigh, and whatever else must of necessity be.
Marcus Aurelius uses natural analogies to illustrate the futility of expecting bad people not to act according to their nature.
Share
More from Marcus Aurelius
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.
But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature brings.
Other voices in this conversation
