For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable (xii. 21).
Marcus Aurelius suggests that contemplating the rapid and continuous changes in existence leads one to devalue transient things.
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I observed, too, that no man could ever think that he was despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man.
All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.
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.
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