“You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite.”

Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher who ruled from 161 to 180. He was a member of the Nerva Antonine dynasty and is remembered as the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors, as well as the last emperor of the Pax Romana. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161. His name is closely associated with Stoic thought and with the late years of the Roman Empire’s long period of relative peace and stability.