The Text
Meditations VII.36
[From Antisthenes.] ’Tis royal to do well and be ill spoken of.49
- 49.Compare Epictetus’s Discourses iv. 6, § 20; 1 Peter ii. 20. See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Antisthenes § 4. Plutarch attributes the saying to Alexander.
Antisthenes was a pupil of Socrates, regarded in antiquity as a forerunner of the Cynics. Plutarch attributes the saying to Alexander the Great.