A card from a free library — ask anything, no account, works offline. Every card carries its source.
Aurelius, Meditations 7.27: To look back upon things of former ages, as upon the manifold changes and con...
aurelius meditations
To look back upon things of former ages, as upon the manifold changes and conversions of several monarchies and commonwealths. We may also foresee things future, for they shall all be of the same kind; neither is it possible that they should leave the tune, or break the concert that is now begun, as it were, by these things that are now done and brought to pass in the world. It comes all to one therefore, whether a man be a spectator of the things of this life but forty years, or whether he see them ten thousand years together: for what shall he see more? 'And as for those parts that came from the earth, they shall return unto the earth again; and those that came from heaven, they also shall return unto those heavenly places.' Whether it be a mere dissolution and unbinding of the manifold intricacies and entanglements of the confused atoms; or some such dispersion of the simple and incorruptible elements... 'With meats and drinks and divers charms, they seek to divert the channel, that they might not die. Yet must we needs endure that blast of wind that cometh from above, though we toil and labour never so much.'
- same section → Aurelius, Meditations 8.47: Keep thyself to the first bare and naked apprehensions of things, as they pre...
- same section → Aurelius, Meditations 7.17: The nature of the universe, of the common substance of all things as it were ...
- on the shelf of → The classics — the great books, kept whole — a member of the classics shelf in the keeping
Is this card incomplete? Tell the library — it will call out for more ↗