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Meditations · Book XII · 19Meditations

Book XII · 19

Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better and more divine than the things which cause the various affects, and as it were pull thee by the strings. What is there now in my mind,—is it fear, or suspicion, or desire, or anything of the kind?

Become conscious at last that thou hast in thyself something better and more god-like than that which causes the bodily passions and turns thee into a mere marionette. What is my mind now occupied with? Fear? Suspicion? Concupiscence? Some other like thing?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XII.19. Translated by George Long (1862). The Stoic Library.