The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book V, §16 (180 CE) Translated by Gregory Hays
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When and why it was written
- When
- Around 170 CE, in the private notebooks.
- Why
- Marcus returns repeatedly to the idea that repeated thought is formative rather than incidental.
What it means
The image is from dyeing cloth: the colour is not applied to the surface, it goes through the fibre and does not wash out.
What makes it uncomfortable is that dyeing is cumulative and unnoticed. No single thought stains anything. The habit of a thought is what sets the colour, which is why Marcus keeps auditing his own.
Our reading of the passage cited above, not a quotation from a commentary.
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Meditations, 180 CE
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