Jason Seely

How swiftly everything disappears--bodies in space and the memory of them in time! So it is with anything that touches our senses, especially those that entice us with the promise of pleasure, or terrify us with the threat of pain, or puff us up with pride and self-importance. The mind readily grasps how worthless and contemptible, filthy, fleeting, and moribund these things are. It makes an accurate appraisal of those whose opinions and voices confer fame, and it apprehends what it means to die. Considered by itself, stripped by reason of all superstitions surrounding it, death is just another work of nature--and only a child fears works of nature. In fact, death is not just one of natures works, it is also of essential benefit to her. Observe how man touches the divine and with what part of his being this contact is made and how the part is then affected.

-Marcus Aurelius