Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Neither respiring like the plants is valuable, nor breathing like the cattle and wild beasts, nor being stamped with impressions through imagination, nor being jerked about by impulse like a puppet, nor herding together, nor being fed — for that is like excreting the waste of one's food. What then is valuable? Being applauded? No. Then neither is being applauded by tongues; for the praises of the many are just the clapping of tongues. So you have let go even of that little glory too — what is left that is valuable? I think it is this: moving and being restrained according to one's own constitution, the very thing toward which both attentive care and the arts lead. For every art aims at this, that the thing constructed should be well-suited for the work for which it was constructed; and the vinedresser tending the vine, and the horse-trainer, and the one who cares for the dog, all seek this. And what do the training of children and the teaching of them strive toward? There, then, lies what is valuable, and if this is well, you will not need to secure for yourself any of the other things. Will you not stop valuing many other things too? Then you will be neither free nor self-sufficient nor free from passion; for you will inevitably envy, be jealous, suspect those who can take those things away, and plot against those who hold what you value. In short, whoever is in need of any of those things must inevitably be in turmoil, and moreover must often find fault with the gods as well. But reverence and honor for your own mind will make you pleasing to yourself, well-fitted to your community, and attuned to the divine — approving, that is, whatever the gods allot and have ordained.