Marcus Aurelius Quotations | Page 3

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.

It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.

Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend...or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforward ness, and all other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

The world is a living being - one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

I'm going to be meeting with people today who talk too much - people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I can't imagine a world without such people.

Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

Look deeply. Don't miss the inherent quality and value of everything.

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.

If anyone can refute me-show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective-I'l l gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

Observe and contemplate on the hidden things of life: how a man's seed is but the beginning, it takes others to bring it to fruition. Think how food undergoes such changes to produce health and strength. See the power of these hidden things which, like the wind cannot been seen, but its effects can be.

When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance revert at once to yourself and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it.

Happiness is no other than soundness and perfection of mind.

To expect an impossibility is madness.

Confine yourself to the present.

A man's life is what his thoughts make of it.

Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region.

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.

Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow," and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or 'twill be gone and nevermore within your reach.

The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.

Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

If any man can convince me and bring home to me that which I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.

I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth.

Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

Each day provides its own gifts.

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?

Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.

The soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then, with a continuous series of such thoughts as these - that where a man can live, there - if he will - he can also live well.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.

All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding.

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.

We are born for cooperation, as are the feet, the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and lower jaws.

Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.

Failure to read what is happening in another's soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.

Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.

Nothing is worth doing pointlessly.

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

The wrongdoer is often the person who left something undone, rather than the person who has done something

Receive the gifts of fortune without pride, and part with them without reluctance.

Dig within. There lies the wellspring of good.

Man must be arched and buttressed from within, else the temple wavers to the dust.

When you are annoyed at someone's mistake, immediately look at yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in thinking that good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame. By being mindful of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you realize that the person was under stress, and could do little else. And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.

Without a purpose, nothing should be done.

Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces - to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What's thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it - and makes it burn still higher.

Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.

It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.

If you separate from . . . everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future . . . and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away.

Your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

Pray look upon the plants and birds, the ants, spiders, and bees, and you will see them all exerting their nature, and busy in their station. Pray, shall not a man act like a man?

Short is the little time which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.

Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about.

Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before his moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus....

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest.

Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task.

If you do the task before you always adhering to strict reason with zeal and energy and yet with humanity, disregarding all lesser ends and keeping the divinity within you pure and upright, as though you were even now faced with its recall - if you hold steadily to this, staying for nothing and shrinking from nothing, only seeking in each passing action a conformity with nature and in each word and utterance a fearless truthfulness, then the good life shall be yours. And from this course no man has the power to hold you back.

Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. .. We should not say 'I am an Athenian' or 'I am a Roman' but 'I am a citizen of the Universe.

Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.

A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

A person's life is dyed with the color of his imagination.

Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.

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.

Body. Soul. Mind. Sensations: the body. Desires: the soul. Reasoning: the mind.

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.

Reflect frequently upon the instability of things, and how very fast the scenes of nature are shifted. Matter is in perpetual flux. Change is always and everywhere at work; it strikes through causes and effects, and leaves nothing fixed and permanent.

Change your attitude to the things that bother you and you will be aware of them.

Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.

A great estate is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see wealthy persons live scandalously and miserably; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not an estate, that makes a man good for something.

This is the mark of a perfect character - to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

Take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.

I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging.

Which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul.

What we do in life ripples in eternity.

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

Because your own strength is unequal to a task, do not assume it is beyond the powers of man.