They will not praise those who are living at the same time and living with themselves; but to be themselves praised by posterity, by those whom they have never seen nor ever will see, this they set much value on.
In his private journal, Marcus Aurelius observes the human tendency to seek praise from future generations rather than from contemporaries.
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Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
For every judgment and movement and desire and aversion is within, and no evil ascends so high.
Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind; but, through their favor, there never…
Labor not unwillingly, nor without regard to the common interest, nor without due consideration, nor with distraction; nor let studied ornament set off thy thoughts, and be not either a man of many words, or busy about too many things.
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