Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

15th of December 2017, 31 min read

Stoicisim is a school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in 3th Century BC. Only surviving texts are from the late Roman period. These include works of Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. I've recently read Marcus Aurelius' Medidations. Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. Meditations is a collection of journal entries written by him (without any intention of publication) in which he provides spiritual reflections and exercises to understand himself and make sense of the universe. I was astonished to see the strength of character and pureness in thought exercised by a man who had supreme power during his lifetime.

I have compiled my favourite passages in this post so I can revisit them from time to time. I hope you'll find them inspiring as well.

Book 1

In this first book Marcus recognizes everyone who has played a positive role in building his character and understanding of life.

1.3 From my mother: piety, generosity, the avoidance of wrong doing and even the thought of it; also simplicity of living, well clear of the habits of the rich.

1.4 From my great-grandfather: not to have attended schools for the public; to have had good teachers at home, and to realize that this is the sort of thing on which one should spend lavishly

1.7 From Rusticus: to grasp the idea of wanting correction and treatment for my character; not to be diverted into a taste for rhetoric, so not writing up my own speculations, delivering my own little moral sermons, or presenting a glorified picture of the ascetic or the philanthropist; to keep clear of speechifying, versifying, and pretentious language; not to walk around at home in ceremonial dress, or do anything else like that; to write letters in an unaffected style, like his own letter written to my mother from Sinuessa; to be readily recalled to conciliation with those who have taken or given offence, just as soon as they themselves are willing to turn back; to read carefully, not satisfied with my own superficial thoughts or quick to accept the facile views of others; to have encountered the Discourses of Epictetus, to which he introduced me with his own copy.

1.8 From Apollonius: moral freedom, the certainty to ignore the dice of fortune, and have no other perspective, even for a moment, than that of reason alone; to be always the same man, unchanged in sudden pain, in the loss of a child, in lingeringsickness; to see clearly in his living example that a man cancombine intensity and relaxation; not to be impatient in explanation; the observance of a man who clearly regarded as the least of his gifts his experience and skill in communicating his philosophical insights; the lesson of how to take apparentfavours from one's friends, neither compromised by them norinsensitive in their rejection.

1.10 From Alexander the grammarian: not to leap on mistakes, or captiously interrupt when anyone makes an error of vocabulary, syntax, or pronunciation, but neatly to introduce the correct form of that particular expression by way of answer, confirmation, or discussion of the matter itself rather than its phrasing - or by some other such felicitous prompting.

Book 2

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition. (2.1)

2.4 ...there is a limit circumscribed to your time - if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return.

2.8 Failure to read what is happening in another's soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend to the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.

2.11 You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think.

2.12 How all things quickly vanish, our bodies themselves lost in the physical world, the memories of them lost in time; the nature of all objects of the senses - especially those which allure us with pleasure, frighten us with pain, or enjoy the applause of vanity - how cheap they are, how contemptible, shoddy, perishable, and dead: these are matters for our intellectual faculty to consider. And further considerations. What are they, these people whose judgements and voices confer or deny esteem? What is death? Someone looking at death per se, and applying the analytical power of his mind to divest death of its associated images, will conclude then that it is nothing more than a function of nature - and if anyone is frightened of a function of nature, he is a mere child. And death is not only a function of nature, but also to her benefit.

2.14 Even if you were destined to live three thousand years, or ten times that long, nevertheless remember that no one loses any life other than the one he lives, or lives any life other than the one he loses. It follows that the longest and the shortest lives are brought to the same state. The present moment is equal for all; so what is passing is equal also; the loss therefore turns out to be the merest fragment of time. No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? So always remember these two things. First, that all things have been of the same kind from everlasting, coming round and round again, and it makes no difference whether one will see the same things for a hundred years, or two hundred years, or for an infinity of time. Second, that both the longest-lived and the earliest to die suffer the same loss. It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if indeed this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

2.17 In man's life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion. What then can escort us on our way? One thing, and one thing only: philosophy. This consists in keeping the divinity within us inviolate and free from harm, master of pleasure and pain, doing nothing without aim, truth, or integrity, and independent of others' action or failure to act. Further, accepting all that happens and is allotted to it as coming from that other source which is its own origin: and at all times awaiting death with the glad confidence that it is nothing more than the dissolution of the elements of which every living creature is composed. Now if there is nothing fearful for the elements themselves in their constant changing of each into another, why should one look anxiously in prospect at the change and dissolution of them all? This is in accordance with nature: and nothing harmful is in accordance with nature.

Book 3

We must have a sense of urgency, not only for the ever closer approach of death, but also because our comprehension of the world and our ability to pay proper attention will fade before we do. (3.1)

3.4 Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people, when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good. Why deprive yourself of the time for some other task? I mean, thinking about what so-and-so is doing, and why, what he is saying or contemplating or plotting, and all that line of thought, makes you stray from the close watch on your own directing mind.

3.5 You should take no action unwillingly, selfishly, uncritically, or with conflicting motives.

3.10 Remind yourself too that each of us lives only in the present moment, a mere fragment of time: the rest is life past or uncertain future. Sure, life is a small thing, and small the cranny of the earth in which we live it: small too even the longest fame thereafter, which is itself subject to a succession of little men who will quickly die, and have no knowledge even of themselves, let alone of those long dead.

3.11 Ask then, what is this which is now making its impression on me? What is it composed of? How long in the nature of things will it last?

3.12 If you set yourself to your present task along the path of true reason, with all determination, vigour, and good will: if you admit no distraction, but keep your own divinity pure and standing strong, as if you had to surrender it right now; if you grapple this to you, expecting nothing, shirking nothing, but self-content with each present action taken in accordance with nature and a heroic truthfulness in all that you say and mean - then you will lead a good life. And nobody is able to stop you.

Book 4

No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life. (4.2)

4.3 First that things cannot touch the mind: they are external and inert; anxieties can only come from your internal judgement. Second, that all these things you see will change almost as you look at them, and then will be no more. Constantly bring to mind all that you yourself have already seen changed. The universe is change: life is judgement.

4.6 With such people such an outcome is both natural and inevitable - if you wish it otherwise you are hoping that figs will no longer produce their rennet. In any case remember that in a very brief time both you and he will be dead, and shortly after not even your names will be left.

4.11 When someone does you wrong, do not judge things as he interprets them or would like you to interpret them. Just see them as they are, in plain truth.

4.13 Do you possess reason?' 'I do.' 'Why not use it then? With reason doing its job, what else do you want?'

4.17 No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.

4.33 All things fade and quickly turn to myth: quickly too utter oblivion drowns them. And I am talking of those who shone with some wonderful brilliance: the rest, once they have breathed their last, are immediately 'beyond sight, beyond knowledge'. But what in any case is everlasting memory? Utter emptiness. So where should a man direct his endeavour? Here only - a right mind, action for the common good, speech incapable of lies, a disposition to welcome all that happens as necessary, intelligible, flowing from an equally intelligible spring of origin.

4.35 All is ephemeral, both memory and the object of memory.

4.41 You are a soul carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

4.47 Just as if a god told you that you would die tomorrow or at least the day after tomorrow, you would attach no importance to the difference of one day, unless you are a complete coward (such is the tiny gap of time): so you should think there no great difference between life to the umpteenth year and life to tomorrow.

4.49 Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest. 'It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.' No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.'

Book 5

At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: 'I am getting up for a man's work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?' 'But this is more pleasant.' Were you then born for pleasure - all for feeling, not for action? Can you not see plants, birds, ants, spiders, bees all doing their own work, each helping in their own way to order the world? And then you do not want to do the work of a human being - you do not hurry to the demands of your own nature. 'But one needs rest too.' One does indeed: I agree. But nature has set limits to this too, just as it has to eating and drinking, and yet you go beyond these limits, beyond what you need. Not in your actions, though, not any longer: here you stay below your capability. The point is that you do not love yourself - otherwise you would love both your own nature and her purpose for you. Other men love their own pursuit and absorb themselves in its performance to the exclusion of bath and food: but you have less regard for your own nature than the smith has for his metal-work, the dancer for his dancing, the money-grubber for his money, the exhibitionist for his little moment of fame. Yet these people, when impassioned, give up food and sleep for the promotion of their pursuits: and you think social action less important, less worthy of effort?

5.5 Display those virtues which are wholly in your own power - integrity, dignity, hard work, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude?

5.6 One sort of person, when he has done a kindness to another, is quick also to chalk up the return due to him. A second is not so quick in that way, but even so he privately thinks of the other as his debtor, and is well aware of what he has done. A third sort is in a way not even conscious of his action, but is like the vine which has produced grapes and looks for nothing else once it has borne its own fruit. A horse that has raced, a dog that has tracked, a bee that has made honey, and a man that has done good - none of these knows what they have done, but they pass on to the next action, just as the vine passes on to bear grapes again in due season.

5.11 To what use, then, am I now putting my soul? Ask yourself this question on every occasion. Examine yourself. 'What do I now have in this part of me called the directing mind? What sort of soul do I have after all?

5.13 Every part of me will be assigned its changed place in some part of the universe, and that will change again into another part of the universe, and so on to infinity. A similar sequence of change brought me into existence, and my parents before me, and so back in another infinity of regression.

5.16 Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

5.17 To pursue the impossible is madness: and it is impossible for bad men not to act in character.

5.22 What is not harmful to the city does not harm the citizen either. Whenever you imagine you have been harmed, apply this criterion: if the city is not harmed by this, then I have not been harmed either. If on the other hand harm is done to the city, you should not be angry, but demonstrate to the doer of this harm what he has failed to see himself.

5.25 Another does wrong. What is that to me? Let him see to it: he has his own disposition, his own action. I have now what universal nature wishes me to have now, and I do what my own nature wishes me to do now.

Book 6

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. (6.6)

6.7 Let one thing be your joy and comfort: to move on from social act to social act, with your mind on god.

6.13 How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird or pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is the mere juice of grapes, and your purpleedged robe simply the hair of a sheep soaked in shell-fish blood! And in sexual intercourse that it is no more than the friction of a membrane and a spurt of mucus ejected. How good these perceptions are at getting to the heart of the real thing and penetrating through it, so you can see it for what it is! This should be your practice throughout all your life: when things have such a plausible appearance, show them naked, see their shoddiness, strip away their own boastful account of themselves.

6.21 If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.

6.22 I do my own duty: the other things do not distract me. They are either inanimate or irrational, or have lost the road and are ignorant of the true way.

6.30 Take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed in purple: it happens. So keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, unpretentious, a friend of justice, god-fearing, kind, full of affection, strong for your proper work. Strive hard to remain the same man that philosophy wished to make you. Revere the gods, look after men. Life is short. The one harvest of existence on earth is a godly habit of mind and social action.

6.44 As Antoninus, my city and country is Rome: as a human being, it is the world. So what benefits these two cities is my only good.

6.47 In this world there is only one thing of value, to live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

6.59 What sort of people they wish to please! And what kind of actions are the means of their success! How quickly time will cover everything - and how much is covered already.

Book 7

For a rational being, to act in accordance with nature is also to act in accordance with reason. (7.11)

7.14 Let any external thing that so wishes happen to those parts of me which can be affected by its happening - and they, if they wish, can complain. I myself am not yet harmed, unless I judge this occurrence something bad: and I can refuse to do so.

7.15 Whatever anyone does or says, I must be a good man. It is as if an emerald, or gold or purple, were always saying: 'Whatever anyone does or says, I must be an emerald and keep my own colour.'

7.18 Is someone afraid of change? Well, what can ever come to be without change? Or what is dearer or closer to the nature of the Whole than change? Can you yourself take your bath, if the wood that heats it is not changed? Can you be fed, unless what you eat changes? Can any other of the benefits of life be achieved without change?

7.21 Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will have forgotten you.

7.26 When someone does you some wrong, you should consider immediately what judgement of good or evil led him to wrong you. When you see this, you will pity him, and not feel surprise or anger. You yourself either still share his view of good, or something like it, in which case you should understand and forgive: if, on the other hand, you no longer judge such things as either good or evil, it will be the easier for you to be patient with the unsighted.

7.27 Do not dream of possession of what you do not have: rather reflect on the greatest blessings in what you do have, and on their account remind yourself how much they would have been missed if they were not there. But at the same time you must be careful not to let your pleasure in them habituate you to dependency, to avoid distress if they are sometimes absent.

7.28 Withdraw into yourself. It is in the nature of the rational directing mind to be self-content with acting rightly and the calm it thereby enjoys.

7.31 Take your joy in simplicity, in integrity, in indifference to all that lies between virtue and vice.

7.59 Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging.

7.61 The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in that it stands ready for what comes and is not thrown by the unforeseen.

7.63 'No soul', says Plato, 'likes to be robbed of truth' - and the same holds of justice, moderation, kindness, and all such virtues. Essential that you should keep this constantly in your mind: this will make you more gentle to all.

7.69 Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

7.71 It is ridiculous not to escape from one's own vices, which is possible, while trying to escape the vices of others, which is impossible.

7.73 When you have done good and another has benefited, why do you still look, as fools do, for a third thing besides - credit for good works, or a return?

Book 8

If you have a true perception of how things lie, abandon any concern for reputation, and be satisfied if you can just live the rest of your life, whatever remains, in the way your nature wishes. You must consider, then, what those wishes are, and then let nothing else distract you. You know from experience that in all your wanderings you have nowhere found the good life - not in logic, not in wealth, not in glory, not in indulgence: nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man's nature requires. And how is he to do this? By having principles to govern his impulses and actions. What are these principles? Those of good and evil - the belief that nothing is good for a human being which does not make him just, self-controlled, brave, and free: and nothing evil which does not make him the opposite of these. (8.1)

8.2 Ask yourself this about each action: 'How does this sit with me? Shall I regret it?' In a short while I am dead and all things are gone.

8.4 Alexander, Julius Caesar, Pompey - what are they to Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? These men saw into reality, its causes and its material, and their directing minds were their own masters. As for the former, they were slaves to all their ambitions.

8.12 When you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is your constitution and man's nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is something you share with dumb animals. Now what accords with the nature of each being is thereby the more closely related to it, the more in its essence, and indeed the more to its liking.

8.14 Whenever you meet someone, ask yourself first this immediate question: 'What beliefs does this person hold about the good and bad in life?' Because if he believes this or that about pleasure and pain and their constituents, about fame and obscurity, death and life, then I shall not find it surprising or strange if he acts in this or that way, and I shall remember that he has no choice but to act as he does.

8.26 Man's joy is to do man's proper work. And work proper to man is benevolence to his own kind, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, diagnosis of the impressions he can trust, contemplation of universal nature and all things thereby entailed.

8.32 You must compose your life action by action, and be satisfied if each action achieves its own end as best can be: and no one can prevent you from that achievement. 'But there will be some external obstacle.' No obstacle, though, to justice, self-control, and reason. 'But perhaps some other source of action will be obstructed.' Well, gladly accept the obstruction as it is, make a judicious change to meet the given circumstance, and another action will immediately substitute and fit into the composition of your life as discussed.

8.48 A mind free from passions is a fortress: people have no stronger place of retreat, and someone taking refuge here is then impregnable. Anyone who has not seen this is short of wisdom: anyone who has seen it and does not take refuge is short of fortune.

8.53 Do you want the praise of a man who curses himself three times 53 an hour? Do you want to please a man who can't please himself? Can a man please himself when he regrets almost everything he does?

8.58 He who fears death fears either unconsciousness or another sort of consciousness. Now if you will no longer be conscious you will not be conscious either of anything bad. If you are to take on a different consciousness, you will be a different being and life will not cease.

8.59 Men are born for the sake of each other. So either teach or tolerate.

Book 9

Erase the print of imagination, stop impulse, quench desire: keep your directing mind its own master. (9.7)

9.18 Penetrate into their directing minds, and you will see what sort of critics you fear - and what poor critics they are of themselves.

9.20 You should leave another's wrong where it lies.

9.30 Consider too the lives once lived by others long before you, the lives that will be lived after you, the lives lived now among foreign tribes; and how many have never even heard your name, how many will very soon forget it, how many may praise you now but quickly turn to blame. Reflect that neither memory nor fame, nor anything else at all, has any importance worth thinking of.

9.34 What are the directing minds of these people? What are they set on, what governs their likes and values? Train yourself to look at their souls naked. When they think that their blame will hurt or their praise advantage, what a conceit that is!

9.40 Is it not then better to use your own power in freedom rather than show a servile and supine concern for what you cannot control?

9.42 Whenever you are offended at someone's lack of shame, you should immediately ask yourself: 'So is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?' It is not possible. Do not then ask for the impossible. This person is just one of the shameless inevitably existing in the world. Have the same thought ready for the rogue, the traitor, every sort of offender.

Book 10

All that happens is an event either within your natural ability to bear it, or not. So if it is an event within that ability, do not complain, but bear it as you were born to. If outside that ability, do not complain either: it will take you away before you have the chance for complaint. Remember, though, that you are by nature born to bear all that your own judgement can decide bearable, or tolerate in action, if you represent it to yourself as benefit or duty. (10.3)

10.8 A great help to keeping these claims to virtue fresh in your mind will be to keep your mind on the gods, remembering that what they want is not servile flattery but the development of all rational beings into their own image: they want the fig-tree to do the proper work of a fig-tree, the dog of a dog, the bee of a bee - and man the proper work of man.

10.10 A spider is proud to trap a fly. Men are proud of their own hunting - a hare, a sprat in the net, boars, bears, Sarmatian prisoners. If you examine their motives, are they not all bandits?

10.16 No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!

10.30 Whenever you take offence at the wrong done by another, move on at once to consider what similar wrong you are committing - it could be setting value on money, or pleasure, or reputation, and so on through the categories. This reflection will quickly damp your anger, aided by the further thought that the man is acting under compulsion - what else can he do? Or, if you can, remove the cause of his compulsion.

10.33 Mind and reason have the power, by their nature and at their will, to move through every obstacle.

Book 11

The external things whose pursuit or avoidance troubles you do not force themselves on you, but in a way you yourself go out to them. However that may be, keep your judgement of them calm and they too will stay still - then you will not be seen either to pursue or to avoid. (11.11)

11.13 Someone despises me? That is his concern. But I will see to it that I am not found guilty of any word or action deserving contempt. Will he hate me? That is his concern. But I will be kind and well-intentioned to all, and ready to show this very person what he is failing to see - not in any criticism or display of tolerance, but with genuine good will

11.15 The rotten pretence of the man who says, 'I prefer to be honest with you'! What are you on about, man? No need for this preface - the reality will show. It should be written on your forehead, immediately clear in the tone of your voice and the light of your eyes, just as the loved one can immediately read all in the glance of his lovers. In short, the good and honest man should have the same effect as the unwashed - anyone close by as he passes detects the aura, willy-nilly, at once. Calculated honesty is a stiletto. There is nothing more degrading than the friendship of wolves: avoid that above all. The good, honest, kindly man has it in his eyes, and you cannot mistake him.

11.17 With each object of experience consider its origin, its constituents, what it is changing into, what it will be when changed - and that no harm will come to it.

11.18 When you are high in indignation and perhaps losing patience, remember that human life is a mere fragment of time and shortly we are all in our graves.

11.21 'The man without one and the same aim in life cannot himself stay one and the same throughout his life.' The maxim is incomplete unless you add what sort of aim that should be. Judgements vary of the whole range of various things taken by the majority to be goods in one way or another, but only one category commands a universal judgement, and that is the good of the community. It follows that the aim we should set ourselves is a social aim, the benefit of our fellow citizens. A man directing all his own impulses to this end will be consistent in all his actions, and therefore the same man throughout.

11.24 At their festivals the Spartans would put seats for visitors in the shade, and sit themselves wherever they could.

11.34 Epictetus used to say that when you kiss your child you should say to yourself: 'Tomorrow you may be dead.' But these are ominous words! 'No,' he replies, 'nothing is ominous which points to a natural process. Otherwise it would be ominous to speak of the corn being reaped.'

11.36 'No thief can steal your will' - so Epictetus.

11.39 Socrates used to question thus. 'What do you want to have? The souls of rational or irrational beings?' 'Rational.' 'What sort of rational beings? The pure or the lower?' 'The pure.' 'Why then don't you aim for that?' 'Because we have it.' 'Why then your fighting and disagreements?'

Book 12

The model for the application of your principles is the boxer rather than the gladiator. The gladiator puts down or takes up the sword he uses, but the boxer always has his hands and needs only to clench them into fists. (12.9)

12.13 How absurd - and a complete stranger to the world - is the man surprised at any aspect of his experience in life!

12.15 The light of a lamp shines on and does not lose its radiance until it is extinguished. Will then the truth, justice, and selfcontrol which fuel you fail before your own end?

12.16 Wanting the bad man not to do wrong is like wanting the fig-tree not to produce rennet in its figs, babies not to cry, horses not to neigh, or any other inevitable fact of nature. What else can he do with a state of mind like his? So if you are really keen, cure his state.

12.17 If it is not right, don't do it: if it is not true, don't say it.

12.22 That all is as thinking makes it so - and you control your thinking. So remove your judgements whenever you wish and then there is calm - as the sailor rounding the cape finds smooth water and the welcome of a waveless bay.

12.32 What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us - and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep. Reflecting on all this, think nothing important other than active pursuit where your own nature leads and passive acceptance of what universal nature brings.

12.36 Mortal man, you have lived as a citizen in this great city. What matter if that life is five or fifty years? The laws of the city apply equally to all. So what is there to fear in your dismissal from the city? This is no tyrant or corrupt judge who dismisses you, but the very same nature that brought you in. It is like the officer who engaged a comic actor dismissing him from the stage. 'But I have not played my five acts, only three.' 'True, but in life three acts can be the whole play.' Completion is determined by that being who caused first your composition and now your dissolution. You have no part in either causation. Go then in peace: the god who lets you go is at peace with you.

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