Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
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It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care not about it.
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Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.
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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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As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.
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Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.
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Remember this- that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
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Live with the gods.
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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
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A man should be upright, not kept upright.
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Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.
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By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.
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The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
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An arrow has one motion and the mind another. Even when pausing, even when weighing conclusions, the mind is moving forward, toward its goal. (Hays translation)
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Death,-a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.
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The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable. He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man: but he who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy.
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Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.
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Ἐγγὺς μὲν ἡ σὴ περὶ πάντων λήθη, ἐγγὺς δὲ ἡ πάντων περὶ σοῦ λήθη.
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Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference.
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Continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time, that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?
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Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.
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It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.
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This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...
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About fame... Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.