This you must always bear in mind

Commentary on Meditations 2.9

Sometimes the Stoic Roman emperor compressed nearly all of Stoicism into a sentence. Meditations 2.9 is a perfect example of this.

In it, he surveys Stoic ideas to keep close and apply in one’s life.

2.9

This you must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature, and how this is related to that, and what kind of part it is of what kind of whole; and that there is no one who hinders you from always doing and saying the things which are according to the nature of which you are a part.

Notes

Before breaking down this passage into its parts, it pays to reflect on the method we’ve seen throughout the Meditations so far.