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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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ii2 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK<br />

good pray is it <strong>to</strong> the ball <strong>to</strong> rise, what harm <strong>to</strong><br />

drop, or even <strong>to</strong> lie fallen ? what good<br />

<strong>to</strong> the<br />

bubble <strong>to</strong> hold <strong>to</strong>gether, or what harm <strong>to</strong> burst ?<br />

so likewise with a candle.<br />

21 Turn a thing inside out, and see what it is<br />

like ; or what it becomes like when old or diseased<br />

or in decay. Short-lived are praiser and praised<br />

alike, remembrancer and remembered : and that<br />

<strong>to</strong>o only in a corner <strong>of</strong> one continent, and even<br />

there all are not in accord with one another, or<br />

even with themselves : and even the whole earth<br />

is but a point.<br />

22 Attend <strong>to</strong> what you have in hand whether<br />

material object, or principle, or action, or thing<br />

signified.<br />

It serves you right. You prefer becoming<br />

good <strong>to</strong>-morrow <strong>to</strong> being good <strong>to</strong>-day.<br />

23 Acting let me refer all <strong>to</strong> the service <strong>of</strong><br />

men :<br />

bearing let me take what comes, referring<br />

all <strong>to</strong> the gods, and <strong>to</strong> the universal source, from<br />

which all things that come <strong>to</strong> pass concatenate.<br />

24 Think <strong>of</strong> bathing and its accessories oil, sweat,<br />

filth, foul water, and all things nauseating. So is<br />

it with every part <strong>of</strong> life, and each material thing.<br />

25 First Verus, then Lucilla ; first Maximus, then

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