Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt; take back what thou wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently and well pleased with her.
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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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In the morning, when thou art sluggish at rousing thee, let this thought be present; 'I am rising to a man’s work.'
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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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Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more suitable?
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Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.
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Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.
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All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.
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Use these rules then, and trouble thyself about nothing else.
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Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
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Death hangs over thee: whilst yet thou livest, whilst thou mayest, be good.
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Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to keep this in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.
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From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.
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Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
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The nature of the All moved to make the universe.
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Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.
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Why dost thou not pray... to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen?
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Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.
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All those events in history were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.
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Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?
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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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Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.
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There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things.
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The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.