Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Children's anger is just noise and babble. We are wretched souls carrying around dead bodies, trying to keep them from falling apart. It's like that funeral song everyone knows.

Meditations, Book 9, Section 22 Book 9 · 29 of 60
Death & Mortality Human Nature
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

Children's anger, mere babels; wretched souls bearing up dead bodies, that they may not have their fall so soon: even as it is in that common dirge song.

Meditations, Book 9, Section 22 Book 9 · 29 of 60
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Just as you were made to help complete and perfect the community you belong to, every action you take should help perfect a life that serves others. Any action that doesn't serve the common good — whether directly or indirectly — is wrong and chaotic. It's like rebellion. It's like someone in a unified group who breaks away and divides what should be whole.

Meditations, Book 9, Section 21 Book 9 · 28 of 60
Doing The Right Thing Human Nature
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

As thou thyself, whoever thou art, were made for the perfection and consummation, being a member of it, of a common society; so must every action of thine tend to the perfection and consummation of a life that is truly sociable. What action soever of thine therefore that either immediately or afar off, hath not reference to the common good, that is an exorbitant and disorderly action; yea it is seditious; as one among the people who from such and such a consent and unity, should factiously divide and separate himself.

Meditations, Book 9, Section 21 Book 9 · 28 of 60
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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