Ernest Renan, Marcus Aurelius, tr. William G. Hutchison (London; New York: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1904), 239-40:
The most solid goodness of heart is that which is founded on absolute weariness, on the clear perception of the fact that all in this world is trivial and without real depth. In this absolute ruin of all things, what remains? Wickedness? Oh, that is not worth the trouble! Wickedness presupposes a certain faith in the seriousness of life—faith at least in pleasure, faith in vengeance, faith in ambition. Nero believed in art, Commodus in the circus—and that made them cruel. But why should the disillusioned being who knows that every object of desire is frivolous, give himself the trouble of cultivating a disagreeable feeling? The charity of the sceptic is the most assured, and the pious Emperor [i.e., Marcus Aurelius] was more than a sceptic; the movement of life in his soul was all but as imperceptible as the whispered sounds of the interior of a tomb. He attained the Buddhist Nirvana, the peace of Christ. Like Jesus, Sakya Muni, Socrates, Francis of Assisi, and three or four other sages, he had absolutely vanquished death. He could afford to smile at it, for, indeed, it had no longer any meaning for him.
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