Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 12.8 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.8
Contemplate the formative principles [forms] of things bare of their coverings; the purposes of actions; consider what pain is, what pleasure is, and death, and fame; who is to himself the cause of his uneasiness; how no man is hindered by another; that everything is opinion.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.8, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/12.8
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA checklist of things to contemplate: what things are stripped of their coverings, what pain, pleasure, death and fame really are, that you yourself are the cause of your own uneasiness, that no one else can truly hinder you, and that everything is opinion.
Older wording
- “formative principles”
- — the underlying forms or causes that make a thing what it is
Themes and situations
- Judgements and impressions
- What is in our control
- Emotions and the passions
- Pleasure and pain
- Death and mortality
Quote cards
The opening line of this passage as an image, with its citation — for sharing or keeping.