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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How ridiculous and what a stranger he is who is surprised at anything which happens in life.
As thou intendest to live when them art gone out, ... so it is in thy power to live here.
But if there is a providence which allows itself to be propitiated, make thyself worthy of the help of the divinity.
And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and…
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