Meditations, 10.9

Marcus Aurelius  translated by George Long

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9Mimi,[55] war, astonishment, torpor, slavery will daily wipe out those holy principles of thine. How many things without studying nature dost thou imagine and how many dost thou neglect?[56] But it is thy duty so to look on and so to do everything, that at the same time the power of dealing with circumstances is perfected, and the contemplative faculty is exercised, and the confidence which comes from the knowledge of each several thing is maintained without showing it, but yet not concealed. For when wilt thou enjoy simplicity, when gravity, and when the knowledge of every several thing, both what it is in substance, and what place it has in the universe, and how long it is formed to exist, and of what things it is compounded, and to whom it can belong, and who are able both to give it and take it away?

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Notes

  • [55] Corae conjectured μῖσος "hatred" in place of Mimi, Roman plays in which action and gesticulation were all or nearly all.

  • [56] This is corrupt.