Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 10.18 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.18
Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.18, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/10.18
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesLook at anything that exists and you will see it is already changing, decaying or coming apart, because everything is built by nature to die.
Older wording
- “putrefaction”
- — rotting
- “dispersion”
- — scattering apart
Themes and situations
- Change and impermanence
- Death and mortality
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