Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.
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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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Art thy not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it? Just as if the eye demanded recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking. For as these members are formed for a particular purpose... so also is man formed by nature to acts of benevolence.
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Remember that all is opinion.
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All those events in history were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.
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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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Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.
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Very little is needed to make a happy life.
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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.
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All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road, thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself.
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Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.
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On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.
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Thou mayest foresee... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years.
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If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.
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The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.
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In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination...
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The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts. (Hays translation)
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Let this always be plain to thee, that this piece of land is like any other; and that all things here are the same with all things on the top of a mountain, or on the sea-shore, or wherever thou chooses to be. For thou wilt find just what Plato says, Dwelling within the walls of the city as in a shepherd's fold on a mountain.
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The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.
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Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.
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To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is perfection of character.
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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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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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What is my ruling faculty now to me? and of what nature am I now making it? and for what purpose am I now using it? is it void of understanding? is it loosed and rent asunder from social life? is it melted and mixed with the poor flesh so as to move together with it?