9. Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if you do not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when you bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what you do is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which you return and do not return to philosophy as if she were a master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water.
For thus you will not fail to obey reason, and you will repose in it.
And remember that philosophy requires only the things which your nature requires; but you would have something else which is not according to nature.
- It may be objected, Why what is more agreeable than this which I am doing?
- But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us?
And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable.
For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when you think of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge?
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 9
Content:
9. Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if you do not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when you bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what you do is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which you return and do not return to philosophy as if she were a master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water.
For thus you will not fail to obey reason, and you will repose in it.
And remember that philosophy requires only the things which your nature requires; but you would have something else which is not according to nature.
- It may be objected, Why what is more agreeable than this which I am doing?
- But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us?
And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable.
For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when you think of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge?