Think
continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting
their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after
predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many
philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how
many heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have
used their power over men's lives with terrible insolence as if they
were immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak,
Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to
the reckoning all whom thou hast known, one after another. One man
after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him:
and all this in a short time. To conclude, always observe how
ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a
little mucus to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through
this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey
in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing
nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.
(podcast episode) (original Greek part 1, part 2)
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