Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 11.34 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.34
When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, “Tomorrow perchance thou wilt die.”—But those are words of bad omen.—“No word is a word of bad omen,” said Epictetus, “which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped.”
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.34, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/11.34
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesQuietly reminding yourself that someone you love will die, even while hugging them, is not morbid or unlucky but simply honest about nature, just as talking about harvesting grain is. Keeping their mortality in mind helps you treasure them now and meet loss with less shock.
Older wording
- “perchance”
- — perhaps
- “bad omen”
- — an unlucky or ill-sounding thing to say
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Family and love
- Grief and mourning
- Preparing for difficulty
- Acceptance and fate
- Parenting
- Fear of death
- Bereavement
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