Skip to content
QuoteQuest

“Of him also I learned how to receive favours and kindnesses (as commonly they are accounted:) from friends, so that I might not become obnoxious unto them, for them, nor more yielding upon occasion, than in right I ought; and yet so that I should not pass them neither, as an unsensible and unthankful man.”

Attribution not independently verified against a primary source.

— Marcus Aurelius

Verification

Attributed

Recorded by a reliable secondary source; exact wording may differ.

Wording, source authorship and rights checked against retrieved text; not an independent editorial review.

Live wording check · 2026-10-26

MEDITATIONS By Marcus Aurelius t and reason: and always, whether in the sharpest pains, or after the loss of a child, or in long diseases, to be still the same man; who also was a present and visible example unto me, that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions; and a true pattern of a man who of all his good gifts and faculties, least esteemed in himself, that his excellent skill and ability to teach and persuade others the common theorems and maxims of the Stoic philosophy. Of him also I learned how to receive favours and kindnesses (as commonly they are accounted:) from friends, so that I might not become obnoxious unto them, for them, nor more yielding upon occasion, than in right I ought; and yet so that I should not pass them neither, as an unsensible and unthankful man. VI. Of Sextus, mildness and the pattern of a family governed with paternal affection; and a purpose to live according to nature: to be grave without affectation: to observe carefully the several dispositions of my friends, not to be offended with idiots, nor unseasonably to set upon those that are carried with the vulgar opinions, with the theorems, and tenets of philosophers: his conversation being an example how a man might accommodate himself to all men and companies; so that though his company were sweeter and more pleasing than any flatterer's cogging and fawning; yet was it at the same Public domain in the USA.
Read evidence

Source

Title
Meditations
Type
Public-domain primary text · Primary source
Location
THE FIRST BOOK
View source at publisher

Context

Section V closes with another lesson Marcus learned from Apollonius.

What it means

He seeks to balance gratitude for friendship with moral independence.

Cite this source

Bibliography entry
Aurelius, Marcus. (n.d.). Meditations. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2680/pg2680.txt
Quotation citation
Aurelius (n.d., THE FIRST BOOK)
In-text citation
(Aurelius, n.d., THE FIRST BOOK)

Incomplete citation — missing: publication date, publisher. Check citations against your institution's style guide.

Citation draft only — confirm wording, speaker and the underlying source before submitting schoolwork.

Report a problem

Provenance: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2680/pg2680.txt