Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

An angry face goes against nature. It's often the face of someone about to die. But even if you could eliminate all anger and passion completely — so it could never return — you still shouldn't be satisfied. You should use clear thinking to understand that all anger and passion are against reason. If you lose the sense of your own innocence, if you lose the comfort of knowing you act according to reason, what would be the point of living? Everything you see now exists only for a moment. Nature, which governs all things, will soon change and transform them. Then it will make other things from their substance, and then others again from those. This way the world stays fresh and new.

Meditations, Book 7, Section 18 Book 7 · 21 of 58
Calm Your Mind Knowing Yourself
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

An angry countenance is much against nature, and it is oftentimes the proper countenance of them that are at the point of death. But were it so, that all anger and passion were so thoroughly quenched in thee, that it were altogether impossible to kindle it any more, yet herein must not thou rest satisfied, but further endeavour by good consequence of true ratiocination, perfectly to conceive and understand, that all anger and passion is against reason. For if thou shalt not be sensible of thine innocence; if that also shall be gone from thee, the comfort of a good conscience, that thou doest all things according to reason: what shouldest thou live any longer for? All things that now thou seest, are but for a moment. That nature, by which all things in the world are administered, will soon bring change and alteration upon them, and then of their substances make other things like unto them: and then soon after others again of the matter and substance of these: that so by these means, the world may still appear fresh and new.

Meditations, Book 7, Section 18 Book 7 · 21 of 58
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

The universe is like a craftsman working with wax. It might shape a horse, then destroy that form and reshape the same material into a tree. Then it shapes that into a person, then into something else. Each form lasts only a short time. If it's not painful for parts to come together and form a body, why should it be painful when they separate?

Meditations, Book 7, Section 17 Book 7 · 20 of 58
Death & Mortality Calm Your Mind
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

The nature of the universe, of the common substance of all things as it were of so much wax hath now perchance formed a horse; and then, destroying that figure, hath new tempered and fashioned the matter of it into the form and substance of a tree: then that again into the form and substance of a man: and then that again into some other. Now every one of these doth subsist but for a very little while. As for dissolution, if it be no grievous thing to the chest or trunk, to be joined together; why should it be more grievous to be put asunder?

Meditations, Book 7, Section 17 Book 7 · 20 of 58
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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