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Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

Either an ordered universe, or a stew of mixed ingredients, yet still coherent order.  Otherwise how could a sort of private order subsist within you, if there is disorder in the Whole?  Especially given that all things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each other

All things are meshed together, and a sacred bond unites them.  Hardly a single thing is alien to the rest; ordered together in their places they together make up the one order of the universe.  There is one universe out of all things, one god pervading all things, one substance, one law, one common reason in all intelligent beings, and one truth – if indeed there is also one perfection of all cognate beings sharing in the same reason

The nature of the Whole has nothing outside itself.  The marvel of its craft is that it sets its own confines and recycles into itself all within them which seems to be decaying, growing old, or losing its use; and then creates afresh from this same material.  This way it requires no substance other than its own, and has no need for a rubbish dump.  So it is complete in its own space, its own material, and its own craftsmanship

Remember how long you have been putting this off, how many times you have been given a period of grace by the gods and not used it.  It is high time now for you to understand the universe of which you are a part, and the governor of that universe of whom you constitute an emanation; and that there is a limit circumscribed to your time – if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return