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