"Can we wonder that men perish and..." - Quote by Marcus Aurelius
Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.
More by Marcus Aurelius
“Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee.”
“For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.”
“The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.”
More on Transience
“The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die”
“Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.”
“I see that nature offers us a solution to everything that we call a problem. If you can just find your own nature and live it as naturally as you possibly can and be in a state of awe over everything, it doesn't matter where you are. It almost speaks to you and says, "There's no reason to be upset about anything. It will pass." If it's really going to pass, why stay confused by it and depressed by it. Just watch it go. It's on its way out. That's what I began to do.”
More on Death
“Nobody knows what death is,nor whether to manit is perchance the greatest of blessings,yet people fear it as if they surely knewit to be the worse of evils.”
“I'm not afraid to die - it's just that I had so much left to do in this world.”
“HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”