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Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XXIX. From some high place as it were to look down, and to behold

here flocks, and there sacrifices, without number; and all kind

of navigation; some in a rough and stormy sea, and some in a calm:

the general differences, or different estates of things, some, that are

now first upon being; the several and mutual relations of those things

that are together; and some other things that are at their last.

Their lives also, who were long ago, and theirs who shall be hereafter,

and the present estate and life of those many nations of barbarians

that are now in the world, thou must likewise consider in thy mind.

And how many there be, who never so much as heard of thy name, how many

that will soon forget it; how many who but even now did commend thee,

within a very little while perchance will speak ill of tbee.

So that neither fame, nor honour, nor anything else that this world

doth afford, is worth the while. The sum then of all; whatsoever doth

happen unto thee, whereof God is the cause, to accept it contentedly:

whatsoever thou doest, whereof thou thyself art the cause, to do

it justly: which will be, if both in thy resolution and in thy action

thou have no further end, than to do good unto others, as being that,

which by thy natural constitution, as a man, thou art bound unto.