“If man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.”

—  Marcus Aurelius, book Meditations

IX, 28
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

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Marcus Aurelius photo
Marcus Aurelius400
Emperor of Ancient Rome 121–180

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Alternate translation: The voice is a flowing breath, made sensible to the organ of hearing by the movements it produces in the air. It is propagated in infinite numbers of circular zones, exactly as when a stone is thrown into a pool of standing water countless circular undulations are generated therein, which, increasing as they recede from the center, spread out over a great distance, unless the narrowness of the locality or some obstacle prevent their reaching their termination; for the first line or waves, when impeded by obstructions, throw by their backward swell the succeeding circular lines of waves into confusion. Quoted by Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development (1893, 1960) Tr. Thomas J. McCormack
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