Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 6.8 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.8
The ruling principle is that which rouses and turns itself, and while it makes itself such as it is and such as it wills to be, it also makes everything which happens appear to itself to be such as it wills.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.8, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/6.8
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesYour guiding mind moves itself and shapes its own character, and it also decides how everything that happens appears to it. The meaning of events is largely something your mind produces.
Older wording
- “ruling principle”
- — the reasoning mind that directs you
Themes and situations
- Judgements and impressions
- What is in our control
- Freedom
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