Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Do not look around at the ruling faculties of others, but look straight ahead to where nature is leading you — the nature of the whole, through the things that happen to you, and your own nature, through the things you must do. Each thing must do what follows from its own constitution; and everything else was framed to serve creatures that reason, just as elsewhere, in every instance, lesser things exist to serve the greater, while beings that reason exist for each other's sake. So then the foremost thing in man's constitution is the social instinct; second is unyielding resistance to the affections of the body — for it is proper to rational and intelligent motion to mark out its own boundaries and never be overcome by the motion of sense or of impulse, since both of these are animal-like, while the intelligent motion wishes to hold the first place and never submit to their control. And that is only just, since by nature it is fit to make use of all the rest. Third in the rational constitution is freedom from rash judgment and from deception. Let the ruling faculty, then, hold fast to these things and keep a straight course, and it has what belongs to it.