No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Genuine
Yes. In Meditations (180), Book 10, section 16.
Found word for word by program in the Greek original and in George Long’s English translation (1862).
- Work
- Meditations (Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν), 180
- Where
- Book 10, section 16
- Found at
- Paragraph 493 of the Greek text, 425 of the English
- Translation
- George Long, 1862
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
[…] Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus as men do.
Ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ὑπολειπόμενον τοῦτο. ζῆσον ὡς ἐν ὄρει· οὐδὲν γὰρ διαφέρει ἐκεῖ ἢ ὧδε, ἐάν τις πανταχοῦ ὡς ἐν πόλει τῷ κόσμῳ. ἰδέτωσαν, ἱστορησάτωσαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἄνθρωπον ἀληθινὸν κατὰ φύσιν ζῶντα. εἰ μὴ φέρουσιν, ἀποκτεινάτωσαν· κρεῖττον γὰρ ἢ οὕτως ζῆν.
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Μηκέθ’ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.
Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time, the turning of a gimlet.
Τοῦ ὅλου αἰῶνος καὶ τῆς ὅλης οὐσίας συνεχῶς φαντασία καὶ ὅτι πάντα τὰ κατὰ μέρος, ὡς μὲν πρὸς οὐσίαν, κεγχραμίς, ὡς δὲ πρὸς χρόνον, τρυπάνου περιστροφή.
Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.
Εἰς ἕκαστον τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἐφιστάντα ἐπινοεῖν αὐτὸ ἤδη διαλυόμενον καὶ ἐν μεταβολῇ καὶ οἷον σήψει ἢ σκεδάσει γινόμενον ἢ καθότι ἕκαστον πέφυκεν ὥσπερ θνῄσκειν.
The scene
A complete, single-sentence entry in Marcus’s philosophical notebook. Immediately before it he urges himself to live according to nature wherever he is, rather than depending on a retreat to the mountains. The next entries return to the brevity of an individual life and the constant dissolution of things.
What it means
Put your account of good character into practice instead of remaining satisfied with talking about it.
Often misread
It is not an instruction to stop reasoning about ethics. The contrast is between discussing good character and actually possessing it; the surrounding notebook is itself an exercise in philosophical reflection.
Topics
Related quotes
- Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it. (paraphrase) Epictetus
- It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. (paraphrase)
- First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. Epictetus
- While it is put off, life runs past. Seneca the Younger
- The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.
Sources
- standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long/text/single-page (public-domain translation by George Long, first published 1862; corpus meditations.en.txt, line 425)
- cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit@70427323b61267cdcd0256b9b02009c23392de07/data/tlg0562/tlg001/tlg0562.tlg001.perseus-grc2.xml (Greek text, book 10, chapter 16; corpus meditations.el.txt, line 493)
Cite it
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (180), Book 10, section 16, translated by George Long (1862). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/waste-no-more-time-arguing-what-a-good-man-should-be/ (31 October 2026).
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