Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 9.16 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.16
Not in passivity, but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.16, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/9.16
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesWhat makes a person good or bad is what they do and choose, not what happens to them. Your character is built from your own actions, not from what you passively undergo.
Older wording
- “passivity”
- — what is done to you, as opposed to what you do
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- What is in our control
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