Meditations 6:44

If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they were good decisions. (It's hard to picture a god who makes bad ones.) And why would they expend their energies on causing me harm? What good would it do them—or the world, which is their primary concern?

And if they haven't made decisions about me as an individual, they certainly have about the general welfare.

And anything that follows from that is something I have to welcome and embrace.

And if they make no decisions, about anything—and it's blasphemous even to think so (because if so, then let's stop sacrificing, praying, swearing oaths, and doing all the other things we do, believing the whole time that the gods are right here with us)—if they decide nothing about our lives . . . well, I can still make decisions. Can still consider what it's to my benefit to do. And what benefits anyone is to do what his own nature requires. And mine is rational. Rational and civic.

My city and state are Rome—as Antoninus. But as a human being? The world. So for me, "good" can only mean what's good for both communities.