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What Would Stoics Do

Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE

Meditations 6.4 — Marcus Aurelius

Translation by George Long (1862)

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.4

All existing things soon change, and they will either be reduced to vapour, if indeed all substance is one, or they will be dispersed.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.4 · tr. George Long (1862)Read in context →

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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.4, tr. George Long (1862)

https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/6.4

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

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In plain English

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Everything that exists will soon change, whether it is all one stuff that turns to vapour or whether it simply breaks apart into pieces.

Older wording

“vapour”
— mist or gas

Themes and situations

  • Change and impermanence
  • Nature and the cosmos
  • Death and mortality

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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.4, tr. George Long (1862)