When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this short speech to yourself: I am getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humour for going about that I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and keep warm beneath the counterpane? Well! but this is a comfortable way of living.

Matthew Arnold Introduces the Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Born in 121, B.C., Died in 80 B.C. (ed. 1910)