Stoic Snippets 171

As the Nature of the Universal has given to every rational being all the other powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. 

For as the Universal Nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purposes as it may have designed. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.35 

IMAGE: Allegory of Wisdom, from the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Lyon 

"Hear, for I am speaking of great things, having wisdom in counsel."