Marcus Aurelius: “How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already swallowed up!”

The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth.

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.

But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.

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!