"Don't be disgusted, don't give up, don't be impatient
if you do not carry out entirely conduct based in every
detail upon right principles; but after a fall return again,
and rejoice if most of your actions are worthier of human
character. Love that to which you go back, and don't
return to Philosophy as to a schoolmaster, but as a
man with sore eyes to the sponge and salve, as another to a
poultice, another to a fomentation. For so you will show that
to obey Reason is no great matter but rather that you will
find rest in it. Remember too that philosophy wills nothing
else than the will of your own nature, whereas you were
wlling some other thing not in acccord with Nature. For what is
sweeter than this accord? Does not pleasure overcome us just
by sweetness? Well, see whether magnanimity, freedom,
simplicity, consideration for others, holiness, are not sweeter;
for what is sweeter than wisdom itself when you bear in
mind the unbroken current of all things of the faculty of
understanding and knowledge?"

Meditations V
#9
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121-180)
translated by A.H.L. Farquharson
Everyman's Library
1946, 1992