The Stoic philosophy
The race of man
which is and is to be
is condemned to die.
And all the cities that ere held sway
o’er the world,
and all that ere have been
magnificent and glorious
of empires faraway,
men shall someday ask
where were they;
they too shall be swept away;
some by wars, others by delay
and by the kind of peace
which ends in sloth,
or by that vice
which is fraught with destruction
even for mighty dynasties
– luxury.
Seneca quoting Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger) in a letter to Luccilus
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