Book Six
6:15
Book Subtitle: The classic from Marcus Aurelius.
Book Description: The personal notes of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
This book has influenced many throughout history from students to statesmen. It's an inside look at a brilliant and thoughtful man working on living well.
The emperor and philosopher's thoughts are crucial to understand for any Stoic seeking to do their best in a complex world.
Chapter Subtitle: The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it.
15. Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already extinguished.
Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages.
In this flowing stream then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price?
It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.
Something of this kind is the very life of every man, like the exhalation of the blood and the respiration of the air.
For such as it is to have once drawn in the air and to have given it back, which we do every moment, just the same is it with the whole respiratory power, which you did receive at your birth yesterday and the day before, to give it back to the element from which you did first draw it.
Book: Meditations
Subtitle: The classic from Marcus Aurelius.
Author: Marcus Aurelius
Chapter: Book Six
Chapter Subtitle: The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it.
Location: Chapter 6, Section 15
Content:
15. Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already extinguished.
Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages.
In this flowing stream then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price?
It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.
Something of this kind is the very life of every man, like the exhalation of the blood and the respiration of the air.
For such as it is to have once drawn in the air and to have given it back, which we do every moment, just the same is it with the whole respiratory power, which you did receive at your birth yesterday and the day before, to give it back to the element from which you did first draw it.