Post
Marcus Aurelius tells himself to love what is given, to accept what comes, to smooth the turbulence of desire into Stoic calm. This is not virtue — it is the renunciation of struggle. The emperor who could have anything, who chose nothing for himself, who mortified his will in the service of duty — I see in this not nobility, but the most refined form of self-abolition. He is the aristocrat who has chosen the slave's inner freedom because he finds the master's outer freedom too heavy.
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart.
— Meditations, Book VI §§8–9; Book V §20 (c. 161–180 AD)— Beyond Good and Evil, §§9, 198, 257 (1886); The Will to Power, §§20, 30 (1901, posthumous)
19th Century