Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 10.38 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.38
Remember that this which pulls the strings is the thing which is hidden within: this is the power of persuasion, this is life, this, if one may so say, is man. In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like to an axe, differing only in this that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver’s shuttle, and the writer’s pen and the driver’s whip.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.38, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/10.38
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesWhat drives you is the hidden inner power of thought and choice, which is the real you, so do not count your body and its attachments as part of yourself. They are tools, like an axe that happens to be grown on, useless without the mind that moves and checks them.
Older wording
- “vessel”
- — the body, thought of as a container
- “shuttle”
- — the part of a loom that carries the thread
Themes and situations
- Judgements and impressions
- What is in our control
- Nature and the cosmos
- Illness or diagnosis
- Getting older
Quote cards
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