{"id": "card_n_6decaf5930ba", "kind": "note", "title": "Aurelius, Meditations §aur_06_xvii: Who can choose but wonder at them?", "body": "Who can choose but wonder at them? They will not speak well of them that are at the same time with them, and live with them; yet they themselves are very ambitious, that they that shall follow, whom they have never seen, nor shall ever see, should speak well of them. As if a man should grieve that he hath not been commended by them, that lived before him.", "source": {"label": "Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. AD 170)", "url": "/canon.html?ref=aurelius_aur_06_xvii", "ref": "aur_06_xvii", "authority_tier": "external_aligned"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "aurelius_meditations", "bands": ["aurelius", "meditations", "stoic", "pre_christian"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_6fa24af7d2e1", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_6bcb2e71c089", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:58.263712+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T19:57:55.486238+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": "443e3d7c986d8d7af68220ee710b57b733fb063cab084490f5c98672a8d82f73", "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"}