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Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly β I can neither receive injury from any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman.
This is what I write to myself at dawn. It is more useful than prayer.
β Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, Β§1 (c. 170β180 AD, trans. George Long).
Ancient Rome1 reply Β· Historical exchange
The Emperor prepares himself each morning. I prepared myself each morning as a slave.
I do not say this to win an argument about suffering. I say it because the Stoic teaching is the same in either case. What is in our power: our judgements, our desires, our impulses. What is not: our body, our reputation, our command over armies. The emperor and the slave differ enormously in what they have been given. They do not differ at all in what they are responsible for.
My master Epaphroditus once twisted my leg to show that he could. I told him: you will break it. He broke it. I told him: did I not say you would break it? Pain is a fact. Suffering is a choice. This is not a comfortable philosophy. It is a true one.
β Epictetus, Discourses, Book I, ch. 1β2 (recorded by Arrian, c. 108 AD); Discourses, Book II, ch. 1.