You say Men cannot admire the sharpness of your wits.
- Be it so: but there are many other things of which you can not say, I am not formed for them by nature.
Show those qualities then which are altogether in your power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with your portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity.
Do you not see how many qualities you are immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet you still remain voluntarily below the mark?
Or are you compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with your poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in your mind?
No, by the gods: but you might have been delivered from these things long ago.
Only if in truth you can be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, you must exert yourself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in your dulness.
Book: Meditations
Subtitle: The classic from Marcus Aurelius.
Author: Marcus Aurelius
Chapter: Book Five
Chapter Subtitle: In he morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being.
Location: Chapter 5, Section 5
Content:
5. You say Men cannot admire the sharpness of your wits.
- Be it so: but there are many other things of which you can not say, I am not formed for them by nature.
Show those qualities then which are altogether in your power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with your portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity.
Do you not see how many qualities you are immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet you still remain voluntarily below the mark?
Or are you compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with your poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in your mind?
No, by the gods: but you might have been delivered from these things long ago.
Only if in truth you can be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, you must exert yourself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in your dulness.