desire such things very much. But
this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of man, for it is in thy
power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere
either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than
into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that,
by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity.
Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let
thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt
recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to
send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou
returnest."

Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the great
for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so
enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased to
struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance the blessings
of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false.

"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father
[Antoninus Pius] who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring
me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace
without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of this kind;
but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the
fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner
in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the things which must
be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful that my children
have not been stupid or deformed in body; that I did not make more
proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by which I should
perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was making
great progress in them;... that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus;...
that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to
nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on
Heaven and its gifts, help, and inspiration, nothing hindered me from
forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it
through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of Heaven,
and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out
so long in such a kind of life as mine; that, though it was my mother's
lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life wit