Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 9.14 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.14
All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time, and worthless in the matter. Everything now is just as it was in the time of those whom we have buried.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.14, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/9.14
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesNothing you experience is truly new: everything is familiar, short-lived and not worth much in itself, and life now is exactly what it was for the people already buried. Seeing this takes the drama out of present events.
Older wording
- “ephemeral”
- — short-lived
- “matter”
- — the physical stuff things are made of
Themes and situations
- Change and impermanence
- Death and mortality
- Time and the present
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