Meditations II.1

Say to thyself at daybreak:¹ I shall come across the busy-body, the thankless, the bully, the treacherous, the envious, the unneighbourly.² All this has befallen them because they know not good from evil. But I, in that I have comprehended the nature of the Good that it is beautiful, and the nature of Evil that it is ugly, and the nature of the wrong-doer himself that it is akin to me, not as partaker of the same blood and seed but of intelligence and a morsel of the Divine, can neither be injured by any of them—for no one can involve me in what is debasing—nor can I be wroth with my kinsman and hate him. For we have come into being for co-operation, as have the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the rows of upper and lower teeth. Therefore to thwart one another is against Nature; and we do thwart one another by shewing resentment and aversion.

• 1.See v. 1.
• 2.Compare Seneca’s On Anger ii. 10.

  Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and adviser to Nero. On Anger is his three-book treatise on the passion; at ii. 10 he argues that the wise man will not be angry with wrongdoers, since no one is born wise and error is common to all.