The Happiness Of Your Life Depends

From the Meditations, a private journal Marcus Aurelius kept during his military campaigns along the Danube frontier in the 170s AD. Never intended for publication, the entries are exercises in Stoic self-discipline written by a sitting Roman Emperor in the field. This line distills a core teaching of Epictetus, whose Discourses Marcus studied closely: that our judgments, not external events, determine our wellbeing.