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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Meditations XXXXI

From Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations":


“A very ridiculous thing it is, that any man should dispense with vice and wickedness in himself, which is in his power to restrain; and should go about to suppress it in others, which is altogether impossible.”

This is sound advice. It gets right to the heart of Aurelius' stoic philosophy: the only person I have control over is myself. Focus on rectifying the things I have the power to rectify and let the rest sort itself out. That being said, it is always easier to focus on other people's problems than my own.

Aurelius, throughout his "Meditations", is fond of advising people to first consider their own flaws and faults before criticizing others.

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