For thus continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time.
This passage encourages viewing human affairs as fleeting and insignificant, emphasizing that what changes is gone forever.
Share
More from Marcus Aurelius
But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.
Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director (iv. 27).
That which is from fortune is not separated from nature or without an interweaving and involution with the things which are ordered by providence.
Other voices in this conversation
