Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

So what keeps you here? Physical things change and fall apart. Your senses are cloudy and often wrong. Your soul is just breath from blood. Being praised by people like this is empty. What are you waiting for then? Death or change — either one should find you calm and ready. But until that time comes, what will satisfy you? Only this: honor the gods and help people. Put up with others. Don't harm them. Remember that everything outside — this broken body, this life — none of it belongs to you. None of it is under your control.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 27 Book 5 · 48 of 52
Freedom & Control What Matters Most Death & Mortality
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

What is it then that doth keep thee here, if things sensible be so mutable and unsettled? and the senses so obscure, and so fallible? and our souls nothing but an exhalation of blood? and to be in credit among such, be but vanity? What is it that thou dost stay for? an extinction, or a translation; either of them with a propitious and contented mind. But still that time come, what will content thee? what else, but to worship and praise the Gods; and to do good unto men. To bear with them, and to forbear to do them any wrong. And for all external things belonging either to this thy wretched body, or life, to remember that they are neither thine, nor in thy power.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 27 Book 5 · 48 of 52
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Very soon, you will be either ashes or bones. Maybe a name. Maybe not even that. And what is a name but empty sound and echo? The things we care most about in life are worthless when you really look at them — rotting and contemptible. The most serious matters, if you see them clearly, are like puppies biting each other. Or like children laughing one moment and crying the next. As for faith and honesty and justice and truth — as the poet said, they left this wide earth long ago and went back to heaven.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 27 Book 5 · 47 of 52
Death & Mortality What Matters Most
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

Within a very little while, thou wilt be either ashes, or a sceletum; and a name perchance; and perchance, not so much as a name. And what is that but an empty sound, and a rebounding echo? Those things which in this life are dearest unto us, and of most account, they are in themselves but vain, putrid, contemptible. The most weighty and serious, if rightly esteemed, but as puppies, biting one another: or untoward children, now laughing and then crying. As for faith, and modesty, and justice, and truth, they long since, as one of the poets hath it, have abandoned this spacious earth, and retired themselves unto heaven.

Meditations, Book 5, Section 27 Book 5 · 47 of 52
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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