For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable (xii. 21).
Marcus Aurelius suggests that contemplating the rapid and continuous changes in existence leads one to devalue transient things.
Share
More from Marcus Aurelius
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
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 it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite.
Other voices in this conversation
