Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. Tutor Fronto and various Antonine officials survives in a series of patchy manuscripts covering the period from c. 138 to 166.

Marcus Aurelius' Stoic tome Meditations written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180 is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.