Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Now think about the people you spend time with every day. How hard it is to put up with them, even the ones we love most! I won't even mention how hard it is to put up with ourselves. Everything is so unclear and messy. Everything keeps changing — the things themselves, time, movement, the things that move. What is there to hold onto? What should we really honor or chase after? I can't even figure it out. It all seems to contradict itself.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 9 Book 5 · 19 of 52
Human Nature Calm Your Mind
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

Pass from thence to the dispositions of them that thou doest ordinarily converse with, how hardly do we bear, even with the most loving and amiable! that I may not say, how hard it is for us to bear even with our own selves, in such obscurity, and impurity of things: in such and so continual a flux both of the substances and time; both of the motions themselves, and things moved; what it is that we can fasten upon; either to honour, and respect especially; or seriously, and studiously to seek after; I cannot so much as conceive For indeed they are things contrary.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 9 Book 5 · 19 of 52
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

The true nature of worldly things is so hidden in darkness that many great philosophers found them completely beyond understanding. Even the Stoics, who think these things can be grasped, say they are barely comprehensible and only with great effort. So all our judgments are shaky. Who among us never makes mistakes in reasoning? Move from thinking about the nature of things to considering what actually possesses them. How temporary and worthless these things are! They might belong to some disgusting person, some prostitute, or some cruel tyrant who bleeds people dry.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 9 Book 5 · 18 of 52
What Matters Most Freedom & Control
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

As for the things of the world, their true nature is in a manner so involved with obscurity, that unto many philosophers, and those no mean ones, they seemed altogether incomprehensible, and the Stoics themselves, though they judge them not altogether incomprehensible, yet scarce and not without much difficulty, comprehensible, so that all assent of ours is fallible, for who is he that is infallible in his conclusions? From the nature of things, pass now unto their subjects and matter: how temporary, how vile are they I such as may be in the power and possession of some abominable loose liver, of some common strumpet, of some notorious oppressor and extortioner.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 9 Book 5 · 18 of 52
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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