“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book X
What this quote means
Marcus, writing only to himself, cuts off philosophical hair-splitting in favour of practice. The Stoic point is that virtue is a matter of action, not theory: the time spent debating the ideal is time not spent embodying it.
The idea behind it
Amor Fati — The Latin phrase "love of fate" — embracing everything that happens, including suffering, not merely tolerating it.
Meditations is public domain; attribution verified. Confidence: high.