QuotesCosmos
The first citation appears in a 1946 translation of Leo Tolstoy's Recollections and Essays https://archive.org/stream/recollectionsand035475mbp/recollectionsand035475mbp_djvu.txt by Oxford University Press. The claim made that it is from Marcus Aurelius. Nothing closely resembling it appears in Meditations, nor does it appear in a 1904 translation of Bethink Yourselves. The other surrounding quotations from Kant also appear to be attributed or do not exist.
“

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

— Marcus Aurelius

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." in the context of "The first citation appears in a 1946 translation of Leo Tolstoy's Recollections and Essays https://archive.org/stream/recollectionsand035475mbp/recollectionsand035475mbp_djvu.txt by Oxford University Press. The claim made that it is from Marcus Aurelius. Nothing closely resembling it appears in Meditations, nor does it appear in a 1904 translation of Bethink Yourselves. The other surrounding quotations from Kant also appear to be attributed or do not exist." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Marcus Aurelius" (Misattributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Marcus Aurelius#majority#finding#oneself#object#escape#insane#ranks#life#side
Marcus Aurelius

About Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana (27 BC to 180), an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.