Aurelius, Meditations §aur_09_ii: It were indeed more happy and comfortable, for a man to depart out of this wo...
Source: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. AD 170) (aur_09_ii) · external_aligned
It were indeed more happy and comfortable, for a man to depart out of this world, having lived all his life long clear from all falsehood, dissimulation, voluptuousness, and pride. But if this cannot be, yet it is some comfort for a man joyfully to depart as weary, and out of love with those; rather than to desire to live, and to continue long in those wicked courses. Hath not yet experience taught thee to fly from the plague? For a far greater plague is the corruption of the mind, than any certain change and distemper of the common air can be. This is a plague of creatures, as they are living creatures; but that of men as they are men or reasonable.
Witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15)
- manuscript_tradition: Vaticanus Graecus 1950 — earliest complete Greek MS
- critical_edition: Dalfen, Marci Aurelii Antonini Ad Se Ipsum Libri XII (Teubner 1987)
- translation: George Long translation (1862) — public domain English
- translation: Hays translation (Modern Library, 2002)
- republication: Internet Archive — Meditations Long translation