Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 12.32 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.32
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man! for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal. And how small a part of the whole substance! and how small a part of the universal soul! and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature brings.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.32, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/12.32
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesYour share of time, matter and soul in the universe is tiny, and you creep across a mere speck of earth. With that in view, treat nothing as truly important except living in line with your own nature and enduring what the common nature of things brings.
Older wording
- “clod”
- — a lump of earth
- “unfathomable”
- — too vast or deep to measure
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Time and the present
- Nature and the cosmos
- Acceptance and fate
- Virtue and character
- Fear of death
- Searching for meaning
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