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Aurelius, Meditations 9.34: How base and putrid, every common matter is!
aurelius meditations
How base and putrid, every common matter is! Water, dust, and from the mixture of these bones, and all that loathsome stuff that our bodies do consist of: so subject to be infected, and corrupted. And again those other things that are so much prized and admired, as marble stones, what are they, but as it were the kernels of the earth? gold and silver, what are they, but as the more gross faeces of the earth? Thy most royal apparel, for matter, it is but as it were the hair of a silly sheep, and for colour, the very blood of a shell-fish; of this nature are all other things. Thy life itself, is some such thing too; a mere exhalation of blood: and it also, apt to be changed into some other common thing.
- same section → Aurelius, Meditations 12.12: At the conceit and apprehension that such and such a one hath sinned, thus re...
- same section → Aurelius, Meditations 7.20: Fancy not to thyself things future, as though they were present but of those ...
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