"The world, within me and without, flows away like a river," he had said; "therefore let me make the most of what is here and now."-- "The world and the thinker upon it, are consumed like a flame," said Aurelius, "therefore will I turn away my eyes from vanity: renounce: withdraw myself alike from all affections." He seemed tacitly to claim as a sort of personal dignity, that he was very familiarly versed in this view of things, and could discern a death's-head everywhere.

Now and again Marius was reminded of the saying that "with the Stoics all people are the vulgar save themselves;" and at times the orator seemed to have forgotten his audience, and to be speaking only to himself.
"Art thou in love with men's praises, get thee into the very soul of them, and see!--see what judges they be, even in those matters which concern themselves.

Wouldst thou have their praise after death, bethink thee, that they who shall come hereafter, and with whom thou [202] wouldst survive by thy great name, will be but as these, whom here thou hast found so hard to live with.

For of a truth, the soul of him who is aflutter upon renown after death, presents not this aright to itself, that of all whose memory he would have each one will likewise very quickly depart, until memory herself be put out, as she journeys on by means of such as are themselves on the wing but for a while, and are extinguished in their turn .-- Making so much of those thou wilt never see! It is as if thou wouldst have had those who were before thee discourse fair things concerning thee.
"To him, indeed, whose wit hath been whetted by true doctrine, that well-worn sentence of Homer sufficeth, to guard him against regret and fear .-- Like the race of leaves The race of man is:-- The wind in autumn strows The earth with old leaves: then the spring the woods with new endows.+ Leaves! little leaves!--thy children, thy flatterers, thine enemies! Leaves in the wind, those who would devote thee to darkness, who scorn or miscall thee here, even as they also whose great fame shall outlast them.

For all these, and the like of them, are born indeed in the spring season--Earos epigignetai hore+: and soon a wind hath scattered them, and thereafter the [203] wood peopleth itself again with another generation of leaves.