Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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A man should be upright, not kept upright.
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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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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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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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Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
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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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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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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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How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.
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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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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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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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You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.
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Live with the gods.
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Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.
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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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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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The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
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Very little is needed to make a happy life.
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Death hangs over thee: whilst yet thou livest, whilst thou mayest, be good.
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Live as on a mountain. ...Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus.