Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

in TO HIMSELF 25
planning, or anything
you from allegiance to your
else that dazes and distracts
Inner Self? In the
sequence of your regards, shun wayward random
thoughts, and, above all, meddling and ill-nature ;
limit yourself habitually to such regards, that if
suddenly asked ' What is in your thoughts now ? '
you could tell at once the candid and unhesitating
truth a direct plain proof, that all your thoughts
were simple and in charity, such as befit a social
being, who eschews voluptuous or even self-in-
dulgent fancies, or jealousy of any kind, or malice
and suspicion, or any other mood which you would
blush to own. A man so minded, and committed
finally to the pursuit of virtue, is indeed a priest
and minister of gods, true to that inward and
implanted power, which keeps a man unsoiled by
pleasure, invulnerable by pain, free from all touch
of arrogance, innocent of all baseness, a combatant
in the greatest of all combats, which is the mastery
of passion, steeped in justice to the core, and with
his whole heart welcoming
all that befalls him as
his portion : I seldom, and only in view of some
large unselfish gain, does he regard what other
men say or do or think. In action his own
conduct is his sole concern, and he realises