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Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

III. Hippocrates having cured many sicknesses, fell sick himself

and died. The Chaldeans and Astrologians having foretold the deaths

of divers, were afterwards themselves surprised by the fates.

Alexander and Pompeius, and Caius Caesar, having destroyed so many towns,

and cut off in the field so many thousands both of horse and foot,

yet they themselves at last were fain to part with their own lives.

Heraclitus having written so many natural tracts concerning the last

and general conflagration of the world, died afterwards all filled

with water within, and all bedaubed with dirt and dung without.

Lice killed Democritus; and Socrates, another sort of vermin,

wicked ungodly men. How then stands the case? Thou hast taken ship,

thou hast sailed, thou art come to land, go out, if to another life,

there also shalt thou find gods, who are everywhere. If all life

and sense shall cease, then shalt thou cease also to be subject to

either pains or pleasures; and to serve and tend this vile cottage;

so much the viler, by how much that which ministers unto it doth excel;

the one being a rational substance, and a spirit, the other nothing

but earth and blood.