A passage from Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.5
✱
From my tutor I learned endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.
Related passages
✱
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
✱
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being.'
✱
Take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed with purple; for it does happen. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation.