Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 4.14 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.14
Thou hast existed as a part. Thou shalt disappear in that which produced thee; but rather thou shalt be received back into its seminal principle by transmutation.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.14, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/4.14
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesYou are a part of the whole and will return to what produced you, taken back into the universe's creative source as a change of form rather than an ending.
Older wording
- “seminal principle”
- — the generative reason of the universe from which all things grow
- “transmutation”
- — transformation into another form
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Nature and the cosmos
- Change and impermanence
- Acceptance and fate
- Fear of death
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