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Meditations · Book XI · 5Meditations

Book XI · 5

What is thy art? To be good. And how is this accomplished well except by general principles, some about the nature of the universe, and others about the proper constitution of man?

What is thy vocation? To be a good man. But how be successful in this save by assured conceptions on the one hand of the Universal Nature and on the other of the special constitution of man?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XI.5. Translated by George Long (1862). The Stoic Library.