The Stoics believed that vicious people fundamentally lack self-love and are alienated from themselves. We must learn to empathize with them and see them as the victims of misguided beliefs or errors of judgment, not as malicious. Marcus says that you should contemplate how they are blinded by their own mistaken opinions and compelled by them to act as they do—they don’t know any better. If you realize that, it will be easier to ignore their censure, forgive them, and yet oppose their actions when necessary. To understand all is to forgive all, as the saying goes.
