Stoic Snippets 273

Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind Providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director. 

If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist? 

But if there is a Providence which allows itself to be propitiated, make yourself worthy of the help of the Divinity. 

But if there is a confusion without a governor, be content that in such a tempest you have in yourself a certain ruling intelligence. 

And even if the tempest carries you away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the poor breath, everything else; for the intelligence at least it will not carry away. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.14 

IMAGE: Francisco Bayeu, Providence Presiding over the Virtues and Faculties of Men (c. 1780)