Whose Praise Deserves Weight
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μέμνηται δὲ καὶ ὅτι συγγενὲς πᾶν τὸ λογικόν, καὶ ὅτι κήδεσθαι μὲν πάντων ἀνθρώπων κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσιν ἐστί, δόξης δὲ οὐχὶ τῆς παρὰ πάντων ἀνθεκτέον, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει βιούντων μόνων. οἱ δὲ μὴ οὕτως βιοῦντες ὁποῖοί τινες οἴκοι τε καὶ ἔξω τῆς οἰκίας καὶ νύκτωρ καὶ μεθʼ ἡμέραν, οἷοι μεθʼ οἵων φύρονται, μεμνημένος διατελεῖ. οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ τὸν παρὰ τῶν τοιούτων ἔπαινον ἐν λόγῳ τίθεται, οἵγε οὐδὲ αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς ἀρέσκονται.
He remembers, too, that all that is rational is akin, and that while caring for everyone is human nature, one must not cling to the opinion held by everyone, but only to that of those who live in agreement with nature. As for those who do not live that way, he keeps steadily in mind what sort of people they are — at home and away from it, by night and by day — and the sort of company they keep. And so he takes no account of the praise of such people, since they cannot even please themselves.
Continuing his reflection on living according to nature, Marcus distinguishes the opinion worth valuing — that of people who themselves live rightly — from the empty praise of those who cannot even please themselves.
Marcus opens from the doctrine of universal kinship among rational beings (τὸ λογικόν συγγενές), the premise that underwrites the cosmopolitanism voiced throughout the Meditations — that all rational creatures share one λόγος and so belong to one city. From this he draws a careful distinction rather than a blanket rule: it is human nature to care for everyone, but it does not follow that everyone's opinion is worth holding onto. Only the judgment of those who themselves live ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει — in consistent agreement with nature — carries that weight. Duty toward all is not the same thing as deference to all.
The second half turns startlingly concrete, and the tone shifts from doctrine to something closer to private ledger-keeping. Marcus does not simply dismiss the crowd's opinion in the abstract; he keeps a running, deliberate awareness of exactly what such people are like — at home, away from home, by night, by day, in whatever company they keep. That specificity sits a little uneasily against the opening claim of universal kinship, and the tension is the real interest of the passage: the same man who has just affirmed that all rational beings are akin also rehearses, almost clinically, the squalor of particular ones, concluding that their praise is worthless because they cannot even satisfy themselves. It reads less as contradiction than as method — Marcus disarms the pull of others' esteem not by contempt alone but by evidence.
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