Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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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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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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The nature of the All moved to make the universe.
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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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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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There are three relations between thee and other things: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.
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In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.
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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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A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained. (Hays translation)
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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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Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?
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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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The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
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Remember that all is opinion.
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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?
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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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To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is perfection of character.
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Οἷς συγκεκλήρωσαι πράγμασι, τούτοις συνάρμοζε σεαυτόν, καὶ οἷς συνείληχας ἀνθρώποις, τούτους φίλει, ἀλλ ἀληθινῶς.
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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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Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.
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Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.
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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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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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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.