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.
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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.
It is thy duty to leave another man's wrongful act there where it is (vii. 29; ix. 38).
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present,--I am rising to the work of a human being.
But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.
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