Depart satisfied

Consider that before long you'll be no one and nowhere, nor will any of the things you now see exist, nor any of those now living. Everything is formed by nature to change, to be transformed, and to perish, so that other things in unbroken succession may come to be.

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is within your power. So take away your opinion whenever you choose, and like a sailor who has rounded the headland, you'll find calm water, everything steady, a waveless bay.

Any single activity, whatever it is, suffers no harm from having ceased once it stops at its proper time; nor does the one who performed it suffer any harm because the act has ceased. In the same way, the whole made up of all our acts—our life—suffers no harm from ceasing at its proper time, if it does cease then; nor is the one who ends this sequence at the right moment treated badly. Nature sets the proper time and limit—sometimes a person's own particular nature, as in old age, but always the universal nature, by whose shifting parts the whole universe stays forever young and complete. Whatever is useful to the whole is always good and timely. So the end of life is no evil for anyone, first because it isn't shameful—it's independent of one's will and not opposed to the common good—and second because it is good, being timely, useful to the whole, and in harmony with it. For the man who moves in step with the Deity, moved in his mind toward the same things, is moved by the Deity himself.

Keep these three principles ready. First: in your actions, do nothing carelessly and nothing other than as Justice herself would act; but as for whatever happens to you from outside, remember it comes either by chance or by providence, and you must neither blame chance nor accuse providence. Second: consider what each being is from the seed to the moment it receives a soul, and from receiving a soul to giving it back, and out of what it is compounded and into what it is dissolved. Third: if you were suddenly lifted high above the earth and looked down on human affairs, and saw how great their variety is, while at the same time seeing at a glance how vast the number of beings dwelling around in the air and the upper air, consider that however often you were lifted up, you would see the same things—sameness of form, and shortness of duration. Is this something to be proud of?

Throw away your opinion, and you are saved. Who, then, is stopping you from throwing it away?

When something troubles you, you've forgotten that everything happens according to the universal nature; you've forgotten that another man's wrongdoing is nothing to you; you've forgotten too that whatever happens always happened this way and will happen this way, and is happening this way right now, everywhere; you've forgotten how close the kinship is between one man and the whole human race—a community not of blood or seed, but of intelligence. You've also forgotten that each man's intelligence is a god, an outflow from the Deity; forgotten that nothing is truly a man's own—that his child, his body, his very soul came from the Deity; forgotten that everything is opinion; and finally you've forgotten that each man lives only in the present moment, and that this present moment is the only thing he loses.

Bring constantly to mind those who complained loudly about anything, those who stood out most for great fame, or misfortunes, or enmities, or fortunes of any kind—then ask yourself, where are they all now? Smoke and ash, and a story—or not even a story. Keep in mind, too, things like this: how Fabius Catullinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his gardens, and Stertinius at Baiae, and Tiberius at Capri, and Velius Rufus—or Rufus at Velia. Think, in short, of every eager pursuit bound up with pride, and how worthless everything is that men strain so violently after. How much more philosophical it is, in whatever occasions life presents, to show yourself just, self-controlled, obedient to the gods, and to do this with complete simplicity—for the pride that prides itself on having no pride is the most unbearable of all.

To those who ask, 'Where have you seen the gods, or how do you know they exist, that you worship them so?' I answer: first, they can be seen even with the eyes; second, I haven't even seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. So too with the gods—from what I constantly experience of their power, I understand that they exist, and I revere them.

The safeguard of life is this: to examine everything thoroughly, what it is in itself—its matter, its form—and with your whole soul to do justice and speak the truth. What remains, except to enjoy life by linking one good act to another, leaving not even the smallest gap between them?

There is one light of the sun, even though it's broken up by walls, mountains, and countless other things. There is one common substance, even though it's distributed among countless bodies each with its own qualities. There is one soul, even though it's distributed among endless individual natures and boundaries. There is one intelligent soul, even though it seems divided. Now among the things just mentioned, the other parts—like air and matter—lack sensation and have no fellowship with one another, and yet even these the intelligent principle holds together, along with their tendency toward each other. But intellect, in its own special way, inclines toward what is akin to it, joins with it, and the sense of community in it is never broken.

What do you want—to go on existing? Well then, do you want sensation, movement, growth, and then to stop growing, to use speech, to think? Which of these seems to you worth wanting? But if it's easy to set little store by all of them, turn to what remains: following reason and God. But it goes against honoring reason and God to be upset that death will strip a man of the rest.

How small a portion of boundless, unfathomable time is given to each man—so quickly swallowed up in eternity! How small a portion of the whole substance, how small a portion of the universal soul; on how tiny a clod of the whole earth you creep about! Reflecting on all this, count nothing great except acting as your nature guides you, and enduring what the common nature brings.

How does the ruling faculty use itself? Everything lies in this. Everything else, whether within reach of your will or not, is nothing but lifeless ash and smoke.

This thought is best suited to move us toward contempt of death—that even those who count pleasure a good and pain an evil have still despised it.

For the man to whom only what comes in its due season is good, to whom it makes no difference whether he has performed more or fewer acts in accord with right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether he views the world for a longer or shorter time—for this man, death holds no terror.

Man, you have been a citizen of this great city, the world—what difference does it make to you whether for five years or three? What is lawful is just for everyone alike. Where's the hardship, then, if it isn't a tyrant or an unjust judge who dismisses you from the city, but the very nature that brought you into it—just as when a praetor who engaged an actor releases him from the stage? 'But I haven't finished the five acts, only three.' Well said—but in life, three acts can be the whole play. What counts as a complete play is decided by the one who was once the cause of its composition, and now is the cause of its dissolution; you are the cause of neither. Depart, then, at peace—for the one releasing you is at peace too.