Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
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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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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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Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.
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Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
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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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How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.
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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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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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Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
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Very little is needed to make a happy life.
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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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Live with the gods.
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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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Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.
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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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You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.