Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Think about how tiny your slice of eternity really is. How quickly it fades back into the great sweep of time. Think about the small piece of the universal substance that makes up your body. The small piece of the universal soul that is yours. The tiny spot on earth where you crawl around. After you truly consider these things, don't let anything else seem important. Focus only on this: do what your own nature requires. Live in harmony with what the common nature provides.

Meditations, Book 12, Section 25 Book 12 · 38 of 41
What Matters Most Knowing Yourself
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

What a small portion of vast and infinite eternity it is, that is allowed unto every one of us, and how soon it vanisheth into the general age of the world: of the common substance, and of the common soul also what a small portion is allotted unto us: and in what a little clod of the whole earth (as it were) it is that thou doest crawl. After thou shalt rightly have considered these things with thyself; fancy not anything else in the world any more to be of any weight and moment but this, to do that only which thine own nature doth require; and to conform thyself to that which the common nature doth afford.

Meditations, Book 12, Section 25 Book 12 · 38 of 41
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

What do you want? To live a long time. What does that mean? To keep feeling things? To keep wanting things? To grow up and then grow old? To keep talking and thinking? Which of these seems worth wanting? If you find that none of these things matter much, then focus on what does matter: following God and reason in everything. It goes against both God and reason to grieve that death will take these things away.

Meditations, Book 12, Section 24 Book 12 · 37 of 41
Death & Mortality What Matters Most
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

What doest thou desire? To live long. What? To enjoy the operations of a sensitive soul; or of the appetitive faculty? or wouldst thou grow, and then decrease again? Wouldst thou long be able to talk, to think and reason with thyself? Which of all these seems unto thee a worthy object of thy desire? Now if of all these thou doest find that they be but little worth in themselves, proceed on unto the last, which is, in all things to follow God and reason. But for a man to grieve that by death he shall be deprived of any of these things, is both against God and reason.

Meditations, Book 12, Section 24 Book 12 · 37 of 41
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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