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Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XXXVI. What things soever are not within the proper power

and jurisdiction of thine own will either to compass or avoid,

if thou shalt propose unto thyself any of those things

as either good, or evil; it must needs be that according

as thou shalt either fall into that which thou dost think evil,

or miss of that which thou dost think good, so wilt thou be ready

both to complain of the Gods, and to hate those men, who either

shall be so indeed, or shall by thee be suspected as the cause

either of thy missing of the one, or falling into the other.

And indeed we must needs commit many evils, if we incline to any

of these things, more or less, with an opinion of any difference.

But if we mind and fancy those things only, as good and bad,

which wholly depend of our own wills, there is no more occasion

why we should either murmur against the Gods, or be at enmity

with any man.