Discourses, Book I, Chapter 29
When children come up to us clapping their hands and shouting, 'Today is good Saturnalia,' do we say, 'The Saturnalia is not "good"?' Of course not, we clap out hands right along with them. As for you, if you can't change a person's mind, realize that he is no more than a child - and clap hands with him. And if you can't bring yourself to do that, then just keep quiet.
And from Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, 50)
Do your best to convince them. But act on your own if justice requires it. If met with force, then fall back on acceptance and peaceability. Use the set-back to practice other virtues.
Remember that our efforts are subject to circumstances; you weren't aiming to do the impossible.
- Aiming to do what, then?
To try. And you succeeded. What you set out to do is accomplished.
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