Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 12.21 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.21
Consider that before long thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which thou now seest, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.21, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/12.21
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesSoon you will be gone, and so will everything you now see and everyone now alive. Everything is built to change and perish so that new things can take its place, which makes clinging and fretting pointless.
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Change and impermanence
- Time and the present
- Nature and the cosmos
- Fear of death
- Feeling life is slipping by
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