Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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A man should be upright, not kept upright.
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For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it is the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness of deserting his post.
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No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into 'the secrets of the nether world,' as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.
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Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,-there, if one must speak out, the real man.
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Think on this doctrine,-that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.
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Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
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All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.
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Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.
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If...it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt.
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'Let your occupations be few,' says the sage, 'if you would lead a tranquil life.'
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Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.
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Adorn thyself with simplicity and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow God. The poet says that Law rules all. And it is enough to remember that law rules all.
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The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
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All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.
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Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted in nature as to die.
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Every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another.
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He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.
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Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.
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Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
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Very little is needed to make a happy life.
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That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.
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This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place; should look at them... a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.
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Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.
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How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.