Top Highlights

• Marcus gratefully declares how of his grandfather he had learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion.
• As a soldier we have seen that Marcus was both capable and successful; as an administrator he was prudent and conscientious.
• It is instructive to compare the Meditations with another famous book, the Imitation of Christ. There is the same ideal of self-control in both. It should be a man’s task, says the Imitation, ‘to overcome himself, and every day to be stronger than himself.’ ‘In withstanding of the passions standeth very peace of heart.’ ‘Let us set the axe to the r...
• ‘No man is sufficient to himself,’ says the Christian; ‘we must bear together, help together, comfort together.’
• Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion. From the fame and memory of him that begot me I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a s...