How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter)
Quote #1
It follows that the longest and the shortest lives are brought to the same state. The present moment is equal for all; so what is passing is equal also; the loss therefore turns out to be the merest fragment of time. No one can lose either the past or the future—how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? (2.14.1)
Marcus is able to keep away from emotional drama and existential angst by observing that all life is the same—no matter how long or short it is in duration. He also emphasizes the importance of the present for all human beings, since it's the only place in time that we can influence or own. Everything else is swallowed by the gulf of time, on either side.
Quote #2
Remind yourself too that each of us lives only in the present moment, a mere fragment of time: the rest is life past or uncertain future. (3.10)
Marcus is sounding more and more like a modern motivational speaker here: Live in the present! Seize the day! Kidding aside, Marcus has a point: we can only control and affect the present moment. No one is guaranteed a tomorrow, and we have no real access to the past.
Quote #3
One who is all in a flutter over his subsequent fame fails to imagine that all those who remember him will very soon be dead—and he too. Then the same will be true of all successors, until the whole memory of him will be extinguished in a sequence of lamps lit and snuffed out. But suppose immortality in those who will remember you, and everlasting memory. Even so, what is that to you? (4.19)
Marcus's purpose here is to kill the desire for fame or to have a good and lasting reputation. He speaks elsewhere of how concern for these things often turn men away from their humanity. By using the image of extinguishing lamps, Marcus faces up to reality: everyone is going to die, including the person seeking fame—and all that person's friends and admirers. Memory itself is fragile and transient.
Quote #4
There is a river of creation, and time is a violent stream. As soon as one thing comes into sight, it is swept past and another is carried down: it too will be taken on its way. (4.43)
Marcus uses the metaphor of time as a rushing stream to illustrate how short-lived human experience really is. The metaphor is particularly apt here, since it conveys the swiftness of time as well as the movement of all created things through it.
Quote #5
Look behind you at the huge gulf of time, and another infinity ahead. In this perspective what is the difference between an infant of three days and a Nestor of three generations? (4.50)
With the loss of so many of his own children, it's easy to see why Marcus spends so much time on the idea that the quantity of life is insignificant. He links this idea to that of the sameness of existence: if you've been around for 40 years, you've seen it all. Stuff is just going to start repeating itself, so there's no real need to hang around and experience more.
Quote #6
Reflect too on the yawning gulf of past and future time, in which all things vanish. So in all this is must be folly for anyone to be puffed with ambition, racked in struggle, or indignant at his lot—as if this was anything lasting or likely to trouble him for long. (5.23)
Marcus learns many lessons from observing the swift movement of time. This one is a favorite: why value anything of this earth, since it is so ephemeral? He reflects on the stupidity of struggling to gain fame or fussing about his fate when it's all over so soon. On the one hand, life is too short to sweat the small stuff. On the other, life is short, and he'll be dead soon. None of the drama will matter then.
Quote #7
Reflect on how many separate events, both bodily and mental, are taking place in each one of us in the same tiny fragment of time: and then you will not be surprised if many more events, indeed all that comes to pass, subsist together in the one and the whole, which we call the Universe. (6.25)
This is quite a different and interesting take on time (here, it's not about transience or death). Marcus reflects on the vast array of things happening in human time at any given moment and uses this to extrapolate out to the universe. In this way, he imagines how the Whole encompasses all things and all times at once, ready to parcel it out as it deems wise.
Quote #8
Look back over the past—all those many changes of dynasties. And you can foresee the future too: it will be completely alike, incapable of deviating from the rhythm of the present. So for the study of human life forty years are as good as ten thousand: what more will you see? (7.49)
Here's some more wisdom on the cyclical nature of human experience. All things change; all things stay the same. This is the paradox of time. Marcus repeats this idea frequently, with a kind of weariness that seems proper to an emperor looking back on the fates and behaviors of former imperial dynasties. Marcus's conclusion is the same every time: you don't have to live very long to see every combination of what can possibly happen.
Quote #9
Look, make yourself a gift of this present time. Those who are more incline to pursue fame hereafter fail to reckon that the next generation will have people just like those they dislike now: and they too will die. (8.44)
Marcus's dry humor surfaces here. Along with his usual observations about present time (it's the only thing we own, so live it), he tells us that investing in future fame is futile, since life is cyclical. In this case, all those horrible people that you hate now (and who hate you) have doppelgängers in the future. There's no hope for positive posterity.
Quote #10
All things are the same: familiar in experience, transient in time, sordid in substance. Everything now is as it was in the days of those we buried. (9.14)
This is Marcus on a Monday, feeling very badly about human existence. The swiftness and monotony of time leaves the emperor feeling that it's just not worth getting out of bed. Everything that will happen today has happened a million times in the past, and what good did it do our ancestors? They're all dead now, anyway. It's kind of a bad attitude, but Marcus isn't interested in sugarcoating anything. In this way, he hopes to see things for what they truly are and value things properly.