"If you find anything in human life better than justice, truthfulness, self-control,
courage… turn to it with all your heart and enjoy the supreme good that you have
found… but if you find all other things to be trivial and valueless in comparison with
virtue give no room to anything else, since once you turn towards that and divert from
your proper path, you will no longer be able without inner conflict to give the highest
honor to that which is properly good. It is not right to set up as a rival to the rational
and social good [virtue] anything alien its nature, such as the praise of the many or
positions of power, wealth or enjoyment of pleasures."
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6
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