{"id": "card_n_629844569d0d", "kind": "note", "title": "Aurelius, Meditations 12.24: What doest thou desire?", "body": "What doest thou desire? To live long. What? To enjoy the operations of a sensitive soul; or of the appetitive faculty? or wouldst thou grow, and then decrease again? Wouldst thou long be able to talk, to think and reason with thyself? Which of all these seems unto thee a worthy object of thy desire? Now if of all these thou doest find that they be but little worth in themselves, proceed on unto the last, which is, in all things to follow God and reason. But for a man to grieve that by death he shall be deprived of any of these things, is both against God and reason.", "source": {"label": "Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. AD 170)", "url": "", "ref": "aur_12_xxiv", "authority_tier": "external_aligned"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "aurelius_meditations", "bands": ["aurelius", "meditations", "stoic", "pre_christian"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_62ce6b705cad", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_615dbe650610", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_spine_classics", "relationship": "member_of", "evidence": "a member of the classics shelf in the keeping"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:58.564802+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T19:57:55.089450+00:00", "visibility": "public", "lifecycle_stage": "public", "volatility": "permanent", "metrics": {"paperclips_count": 0, "helpful_count": 0, "not_helpful_count": 0, "cite_count": 4, "walks_through_count": 0, "flagged_count": 0}, "source_hash": "37c7eeeb90a03d9327a31c607efb65ddeafef9c483dd65a7ecb8a615b44cac96", "witnesses": [{"class": "manuscript_tradition", "label": "Vaticanus Graecus 1950 — earliest complete Greek MS", "ref": "Vat-Gr-1950"}, {"class": "critical_edition", "label": "Dalfen, Marci Aurelii Antonini Ad Se Ipsum Libri XII (Teubner 1987)", "ref": "Dalfen-Teubner"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "George Long translation (1862) — public domain English", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680", "ref": "Long-1862"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Hays translation (Modern Library, 2002)", "ref": "Hays-2002"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Internet Archive — Meditations Long translation", "url": "https://archive.org/details/meditations00auregoog", "ref": "IA-Meditations"}], "witness_status": "passed", "witness_status_reason": "5 witnesses across 4 independence classes: ['critical_edition', 'manuscript_tradition', 'republication', 'translation']", "surface": "secular", "call": "classics.aurelius.meditations", "facets": {"concept": ["pre_christian"]}, "presentation": {"glyph": "•", "kind_label": "aurelius meditations", "by": "Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. AD 170)", "authority": "external_aligned", "posted": "", "standing": ""}, "neighbors": [{"id": "card_n_62ce6b705cad", "title": "Aurelius, Meditations 8.19: As one that tosseth up a ball.", "relationship": "same section", "why": "", "href": "/card/card_n_62ce6b705cad", "resolved": true}, {"id": "card_n_615dbe650610", "title": "Aurelius, Meditations 4.21: Try also how a good man's life; (of one, who is well pleased with those thing...", "relationship": "same section", "why": "", "href": "/card/card_n_615dbe650610", "resolved": true}, {"id": "card_spine_classics", "title": "The classics — the great books, kept whole", "relationship": "on the shelf of", "why": "a member of the classics shelf in the keeping", "href": "/card/card_spine_classics", "resolved": true}]}