This reflection also tends to the removal of the desire of empty fame, that it is no longer in thy power to have lived the whole of thy life, or at least thy life from thy youth upwards, like a philosopher; but both to many others and to thyself it is plain that thou art far from philosophy.
From his personal reflections, Marcus Aurelius considers the difficulty of living a consistently philosophical life and the perception of his own shortcomings.
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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.
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
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