Project Gutenberg #2680
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
180The Roman emperor's private Stoic notebook on duty, mortality, and the governed mind, in Meric Casaubon's translation.
Project Gutenberg #2680 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for The Missing Workbook from public-domain source metadata
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from friends and kinsmen, but yet without either reluctancy or compulsion. For this also is according to Nature.
XXXVII. Use thyself; as often, as thou seest any man do anything, presently (if it be possible) to say unto thyself, What is this man's end in this his action? But begin this course with thyself first of all, and diligently examine thyself concerning whatsoever thou doest.
XXXVIII. Remember, that that which sets a man at work, and hath power over the affections to draw them either one way, or the other way, is not any external thing properly, but that which is hidden within every man's dogmata, and opinions: That, that is rhetoric; that is life; that (to speak true) is man himself. As for thy body, which as a vessel, or a case, compasseth thee about, and the many and curious instruments that it hath annexed unto it, let them not trouble thy thoughts. For of themselves they are but as a carpenter's axe, but that they are born with us, and naturally sticking unto us. But otherwise, without the inward cause that hath power to move them, and to restrain them, those parts are of themselves of no more use unto us, than the shuttle is of itself to the weaver, or the pen to the writer, or the whip to the coachman.