Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

vi TO HIMSELF 73
current of time perennially renews eternity. In
this river of existence how can one prize much any
of the things that race by, on none of which one
can take firm stand ? it were like setting one's love
on some sparrow that flits past and in an instant
is out of sight. Life itself may be regarded
as so
much exhalation of blood and respiration of air.
A single breath, an inhalation and emission, such
as we perform every moment, fitly compares with
that final emission of the quickening pneuma^ which
you received but yesterday at birth, and now render
back to the element from which you first drew it.
What is worth prizing? Not the power of 16
transpiration, which we share with plants ; nor
respiration, shared with cattle and brute beasts ;
the impressions of sense ;
nor herding with each other ;
nor
nor the pulls of impulse ;
nor nutrition, which
after all is no better than excretion. What then ?
the clapping of men's hands? No, nor clapping
of their tongues ;
for the applause of the multitude
is but a clatter of tongues. Discarding reputation
then, what is there that remains prizeworthy?
To my mind, this command of one's appointed
being, alike for action and inaction, in the direction
of its guiding pursuits and arts. For the aim of