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Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Stoic Snippets 222


Observe what your nature requires, so far as you are governed by Nature only: then do it and accept it, if your nature, so far as you are a living being, shall not be made worse by it. 

And next you must observe what your nature requires so far as you are a living being. And all this you may allow yourself, if your nature, so far as you are a rational animal, shall not be made worse by it. 

But the rational animal is consequently also a social animal. 

Use these rules, then, and trouble yourself about nothing else. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.2 

IMAGE: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Playing Naked People (1910) 



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