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What Would Stoics Do

Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE

Meditations 11.35 — Marcus Aurelius

Translation by George Long (1862)

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.35

The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape, all are changes, not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.35 · tr. George Long (1862)Read in context →

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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.35, tr. George Long (1862)

https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/11.35

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences

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In plain English

AI-written notes

The unripe grape, the ripe bunch and the raisin are stages of one process, each a change into something that does not exist yet rather than into nothing. Endings, including death and ageing, can be seen as transformation instead of annihilation.

Themes and situations

  • Change and impermanence
  • Acceptance and fate
  • Death and mortality
  • Nature and the cosmos
  • Fear of death
  • Getting older

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