Be like a rock: the waves are constantly breaking against it, it stands immovably, and the excited waters subside around it." Marcus Aurelius doubted and was afraid, knew someone else's meanness and rudeness, he was discussed and condemned - and at the same time he invariably found the strength to remain calm, fortitude, firmness of character. His diary shows colossal work on himself, a scrupulous analysis of feelings and thoughts, which allowed him to become one of the five good emperors under whom the Roman Empire reached its peak.