Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Things are, in a way, wrapped in such a veil that to not a few philosophers, and not the run-of-the-mill ones either, they have seemed altogether incomprehensible; indeed even to the Stoics themselves they seem hard to comprehend — and all our assent is subject to change, for where is the man who never changes? Go, then, to the very objects themselves, seeing them as short-lived and worthless, capable of being in the possession of a pervert, or a prostitute, or a bandit. After that, go on to the characters of those who live alongside you, among whom it is hard to put up with even the most agreeable, not to mention that a man scarcely puts up with even himself. In such murk and filth, then, and in so great a flux of substance and time and motion and things moved, I cannot conceive what there could be worth prizing or being seriously concerned with at all. On the contrary, one must comfort oneself and wait for the natural dissolution, and not be vexed at the delay, but find rest in only these two things: one, that nothing will befall me that fails to fit the workings of the whole cosmos; the other, that no external force can make me act against my own indwelling god and guardian spirit — since no one has power to compel it into wrongdoing.