Marcus Aurelius Quotations | Page 6

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don't.

Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind.

No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothings can happen to you that is not required by Nature.

Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What's closer to nature's heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can't you see? It's just the same with you - and just as vital to nature.

No longer let thy breathing only act in concert with the air which surrounds thee, but let thy intelligence also now be in harmony with the intelligence which embraces all things. For the intelligent power is no less diffused in all parts and pervades all things for him who is willing to draw it to him than the aërial power for him who is able to respire it.

Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse.

Why should any of these things that happen externally distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing: cease roving to and fro.

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature, and how this is related to that, and what kind of a part it is of what kind of a whole; and that there is no one who hinders thee from always doing and saying the things which are according to the nature of which thou art a part.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

A person's life is what their thoughts make it.

He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.

Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance.

The universe is a single life comprising one substance and one soul.

It will suffice thee to remember as concerning pain ... that the mind may, by stopping all manner of commerce and sympathy with the body, still retain its own tranquility.

Be satisfied with your business, and learn to love what you were bred to.

Love the people with whom fate brings you together

It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think.

Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.

If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?

Vex not thy spirit at the course of things, they heed not thy vexations

That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.

Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.

In the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.

Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.

Truth and ceremony are two things.

A rational nature admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind.

Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.

It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none.

And yet, after all, what is posthumous fame? Altogether vanity.

God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose.

Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the emerald were always saying this: "Whatever any one does or says, I must still be emerald, and keep my color.

Everything is mere opinion.

Get rid of the judgement ... get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself.

Remember that there is a God who desires neither praise nor glory from men created in his image, but rather that they, guided by the understanding given them, should in their actions become like unto him.

A lucky chance is constant in nothing but inconstancy.

I consist of a little body and a soul.

In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both better... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents.

No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.

Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.

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?

This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world?

The man who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know where he lives.

You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others.

Everything is but what we think it.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self respect, to hate any person, to curse, to act the hypocrite.

...if a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come.

...in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found.

He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.

All that is from the gods is full of Providence.

The best sort of revenue is not to be like him who did the injury.

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.

A man is a little soul carrying around a courpse.

A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

There is no misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good fortune.

Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light or look the world in the face.

Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds.

Consider how many do not even know your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how those who now praise you will presently blame you.

All things change, and you yourself are constantly wasting away. So also is the universe.

No one wearies of benefits received.

Leave the wrong done by another where the wrong arose.

One whose chief regard is for his own mind, and for the divinity within him and the service of its goodness, will strike no poses, utter no complaints, and crave neither for solitude nor yet for a crowd. Best of all, his life will be free from continual pursuing and avoiding.

Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.

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.

In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable-boy's. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.

Every instant of time... is a pinprick of eternity.

The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself.

Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which thou returnest

Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power: sincerity and dignity; industriousness; and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank; be temperate in manner and speech; carry yourself with authority.

Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.

From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.

In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases.

Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth.

One man is proud when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears ... Are these not robbers?

Nature set a limit on sleep - as it did on eating and drinking. And youre over the limit. But not of working. There youre still below your quota. You dont love yourself enough. Or youd love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. They even forget to wash and eat.

A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.

Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.

Ifit 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.

Prize that which is best in the universe; and this is that which useth everything and ordereth everything.

The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.

The intelligence of the universe is social.

In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present: 'I am rising to a man's work.'

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities .

Everything that happens either happens in such a way as you are formed by nature to bear it, or as you are not formed by nature to bear it.

The body of an actor can be either his best friend or his worst enemy.

Dig inside. Inside is the fountain of good, and it will forever flow, if you will forever dig.

Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it--turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole.

All things are in the act of change; thou thyself in ceaseless transformation and partial decay, and the whole universe with thee.

Let no act be done without purpose.

It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.

Your task is to stand straight; not to be held straight.

When we consider we are bound to be serviceable to mankind, and bear with their faults, we shall perceive there is a common tie of nature and relation between us.

Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.