Marcus Aurelius

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

— Marcus Aurelius

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

— Marcus Aurelius

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

— Marcus Aurelius

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

— Marcus Aurelius

Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. Brief is man's life and small the nook of the earth where he lives; brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago.

— Marcus Aurelius

Each day provides its own gifts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

— Marcus Aurelius

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

— Marcus Aurelius

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

Poverty is the mother of crime.

— Marcus Aurelius

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

— Marcus Aurelius

Anger cannot be dishonest.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

— Marcus Aurelius

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

— Marcus Aurelius

Confine yourself to the present.

— Marcus Aurelius

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

— Marcus Aurelius

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

— Marcus Aurelius

Men exist for the sake of one another.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

Each day provides its own gifts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

— Marcus Aurelius

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

— Marcus Aurelius

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.

— Marcus Aurelius

He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.

— Marcus Aurelius

When a bunch of known corrupt people unite against one man and spare no effort to ridicule him, blackmail him and attempt to assassinate his character, blindly follow that one man!

— Marcus Aurelius

Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

— Marcus Aurelius

Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius

You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Men exist for the sake of one another.

— Marcus Aurelius

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...

— Marcus Aurelius

Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember that all is opinion.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.

— Marcus Aurelius

For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

— Marcus Aurelius

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

— Marcus Aurelius

What means all this?

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.

— Marcus Aurelius

A man should be upright, not kept upright.

— Marcus Aurelius

But that which is useful is the better.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

The ruling power within, when it is in its natural state, is so related to outer circumstances that it easily changes to accord with what can be done and what is given it to do.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let no act be done at haphazard, nor otherwise than according to the finished rules that govern its kind.

— Marcus Aurelius

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.

— Marcus Aurelius

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

— Marcus Aurelius

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

— Marcus Aurelius

Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

If mind is common to us, then also the reason, whereby we are reasoning beings, is common. If this be so, then also the reason which enjoins what is to be done or left undone is common. If this be so, law also is common; if this be so, we are citizens; if this be so, we are partakers in one constitution; if this be so, the Universe is a kind of Commonwealth.

— Marcus Aurelius

Death, like generation, is a secret of Nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.

— Marcus Aurelius

Death hangs over thee: whilst yet thou livest, whilst thou mayest, be good.

— Marcus Aurelius

We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.

— Marcus Aurelius

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

— Marcus Aurelius

Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

— Marcus Aurelius

Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the moring, think of what a precious privelege it is to be alive-- to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let your occupations be few," says the sage, "if you would lead a tranquil life.

— Marcus Aurelius

Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember this— that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

— Marcus Aurelius

All is ephemeral — fame and the famous as well.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of thyself. And these too change, and they murmur not".

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Confine yourself to the present.

— Marcus Aurelius

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

— Marcus Aurelius

Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

Give yourself a gift: the present moment. People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say -x- about you, or think -y-?

— Marcus Aurelius

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.

— Marcus Aurelius

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

— Marcus Aurelius

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

— Marcus Aurelius

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

— Marcus Aurelius

All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.

— Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.

— Marcus Aurelius

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

— Marcus Aurelius

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

— Marcus Aurelius

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’ (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility.

— Marcus Aurelius

Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

A horse at the end of the race...A dog when the hunt is over...A bee with its honey stored...And a human being after helping others. They don't make a fuss about it. They just go on to something else, as the vine looks forward to bearing fruit again in season. We should be like that. Acting almost unconsciously. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

The other reason is that what happens to the individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world--of its well-being, its fulfillment, or its very existence, even. Because the whole is damaged if you cut away anything--anything at all--from its continuity and its coherence. Not only its parts, but its purposes. And that's what you're doing when you complain: hacking and destroying. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human--however imperfectly--and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

It is crazy to want what is impossible. And impossible for the wicked not to do so. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing happens to anyone that he can't endure. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Things have no hold on the soul. They have no access to it, cannot move or direct it. It is moved and directed by itself alone. It takes the things before it and interprets them as it sees fit. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

— Marcus Aurelius

Men exist for the sake of one another.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh--gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into our thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don't try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don't let the mind start in with judgments, calling it 'good' or 'bad.' (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Live with the gods.

— Marcus Aurelius

Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee?

— Marcus Aurelius

The intelligence of the universe is social.

— Marcus Aurelius

The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.

— Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

— Marcus Aurelius

If any man can convince me and bring home to me that 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.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life.

— Marcus Aurelius

I consist of a little body and a soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.

— Marcus Aurelius

What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.

— Marcus Aurelius

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

— Marcus Aurelius

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

— Marcus Aurelius

How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

— Marcus Aurelius

To a rational being it is the same thing to act according to nature and according to reason.

— Marcus Aurelius

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

— Marcus Aurelius

For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.

— Marcus Aurelius

Be thou erect, or be made erect.

— Marcus Aurelius

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

— Marcus Aurelius

Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?

— Marcus Aurelius

Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?

— Marcus Aurelius

Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou seest, and out of there substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of them, in order that the world may ever be new.

— Marcus Aurelius

Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.

— Marcus Aurelius

Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.

— Marcus Aurelius

Wipe out the imagination. Stop pulling the strings. Confine thyself to the present. ...Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and the material. ...Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.

— Marcus Aurelius

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

— Marcus Aurelius

Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and be abused.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care not about it.

— Marcus Aurelius

If the gods care not for me and for my children, There is a reason for it.

— Marcus Aurelius

For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it is the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness [of deserting his post].

— Marcus Aurelius

Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

— Marcus Aurelius

This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place; should look at them... a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.

— Marcus Aurelius

Another may be more expert in casting [throwing] his opponent; but he is not more social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbors.

— Marcus Aurelius

Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more suitable?

— Marcus Aurelius

Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...

— Marcus Aurelius

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to keep this in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.

— Marcus Aurelius

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...

— Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

— Marcus Aurelius

To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is perfection of character.

— Marcus Aurelius

The nature of the All moved to make the universe.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

— Marcus Aurelius

You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.

— Marcus Aurelius

Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion of every impression on the soul, apply to it the principles of Physic, of Ethic, and of Dialectic.

— Marcus Aurelius

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down... what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?

— Marcus Aurelius

What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us – and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

— Marcus Aurelius

Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.

— Marcus Aurelius

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember this, then, that this little compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or thy poor breath must be extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity... yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. ...he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal ...he has allowed him to be returned and to be united and to resume his place as a part.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

— Marcus Aurelius

As the nature of the universal has given to every rational being all the powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. For as the universal nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purpose as it may have designed.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.

— Marcus Aurelius

If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

— Marcus Aurelius

The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.

— Marcus Aurelius

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

— Marcus Aurelius

If...it 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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

— Marcus Aurelius

No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

— Marcus Aurelius

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)

— Marcus Aurelius

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

— Marcus Aurelius

He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is. And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is. But he who has failed in any one of these things could not even say for what purpose he exists himself. What then dost thou think of him who [avoids or] seeks the praise of those who applaud, of men who know not either where they are or who they are?

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...

— Marcus Aurelius

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

— Marcus Aurelius

You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. (Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?) (Hays translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

— Marcus Aurelius

He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all, and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life.

— Marcus Aurelius

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. (Long translation)

— Marcus Aurelius

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

— Marcus Aurelius

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)

— Marcus Aurelius

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

— Marcus Aurelius

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

— Marcus Aurelius

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

— Marcus Aurelius

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

— Marcus Aurelius

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

— Marcus Aurelius

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

— Marcus Aurelius

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

— Marcus Aurelius

All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.

— Marcus Aurelius

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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?

— Marcus Aurelius

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

— Marcus Aurelius

Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor: thy own, that thy may make it just; and that of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and that of thy neighbor, that thy mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and that thou mayst also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to thine.

— Marcus Aurelius

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

— Marcus Aurelius

As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

— Marcus Aurelius

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect... or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of a sequence in a manner; or individual elements are the origin of all things. In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

— Marcus Aurelius

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.

— Marcus Aurelius

If man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.

— Marcus Aurelius

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

— Marcus Aurelius

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

Anger cannot be dishonest.

— Marcus Aurelius

He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

— Marcus Aurelius

The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!

— Marcus Aurelius

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

— Marcus Aurelius

Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault with what is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only atoms, and nothing else than a mixture and dispersion. Why, then, art thou disturbed? Say to this ruling faculty, Art thou dead, art thou corrupted, art thou playing the hypocrite, art thou become a beast, dost thou herd and feed with the rest?

— Marcus Aurelius

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

— Marcus Aurelius

Why dost thou not pray... to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen?

— Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

Is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power?

— Marcus Aurelius

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

— Marcus Aurelius

One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays: How shall I be released from this? Another prays: How shall I not desire to be released? Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

— Marcus Aurelius

Use these rules then, and trouble thyself about nothing else.

— Marcus Aurelius

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

— Marcus Aurelius

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

— Marcus Aurelius

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

— Marcus Aurelius

Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of thy being, and of that which is incident to it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. Brief is man's life and small the nook of the earth where he lives; brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

The whole contains nothing which is not or its advantage; and all natures indeed have this common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to generate anything harmful to itself.

— Marcus Aurelius

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

— Marcus Aurelius

By remembering then that I am a part of such a whole, I shall be content with everything that happens. And inasmuch as I am in a manner intimately related to the parts which are of the same kind with myself, I shall do nothing unsocial, but I shall rather direct myself to the things which are of the same kind with myself, and I shall turn all my efforts to the common interest, and divert them from the contrary.

— Marcus Aurelius

Each day provides its own gifts.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

— Marcus Aurelius

To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt; take back what thou wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently and well pleased with her.

— Marcus Aurelius

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

— Marcus Aurelius

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

— Marcus Aurelius

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet.

— Marcus Aurelius

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted in nature as to die.

— Marcus Aurelius

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius

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?

— Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

He who flies from his master is a runaway; but the law is master, and he who breaks the law is a runaway. And he also who is grieved or angry or afraid, is dissatisfied because something has been or is or shall be of the things which are appointed by Him who rules all things, and He is Law, and assigns to every man what is fit. He then who fears or is grieved or is angry is a runaway.

— Marcus Aurelius

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

— Marcus Aurelius

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

— Marcus Aurelius

Poverty is the mother of crime.

— Marcus Aurelius

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

— Marcus Aurelius

All those [events in history] were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.

— Marcus Aurelius

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

— Marcus Aurelius

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

— Marcus Aurelius

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself... For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.

— Marcus Aurelius

True hierarchy can be found in the animal kingdom. Man must recognise sigma from alpha, the latter from beta, and the former from gamma. Order is in the intellect and strength of the spirit of man.

— Marcus Aurelius

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

— Marcus Aurelius

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?

— Marcus Aurelius

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

— Marcus Aurelius

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

— Marcus Aurelius

What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Confine yourself to the present.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art not simple or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy power.

— Marcus Aurelius

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

— Marcus Aurelius

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

Men exist for the sake of one another.

— Marcus Aurelius

And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen.

— Marcus Aurelius

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

— Marcus Aurelius

A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.

— Marcus Aurelius

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

— Marcus Aurelius

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,—there, if one must speak out, the real man.

— Marcus Aurelius

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

— Marcus Aurelius

In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee, and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like an ax, differing only in this, that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the writer's pen, and the driver's whip.

— Marcus Aurelius

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

— Marcus Aurelius

Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.

— Marcus Aurelius

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

— Marcus Aurelius

There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

— Marcus Aurelius

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

— Marcus Aurelius

The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.

— Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

— Marcus Aurelius

And virtue they will curse, speaking harsh words.

— Marcus Aurelius

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

— Marcus Aurelius

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.

— Marcus Aurelius

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

— Marcus Aurelius

If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it. For let thy efforts be —

— Marcus Aurelius

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

— Marcus Aurelius

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

— Marcus Aurelius

Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.

— Marcus Aurelius

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.

— Marcus Aurelius

Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.

— Marcus Aurelius

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

— Marcus Aurelius

Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.

— Marcus Aurelius

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

— Marcus Aurelius

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

— Marcus Aurelius

Anger cannot be dishonest.

— Marcus Aurelius

In the morning, when thou art sluggish at rousing thee, let this thought be present; “I am rising to a man’s work.”

— Marcus Aurelius

There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won't hail the occasion with delight.

— Marcus Aurelius

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

— Marcus Aurelius

No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.

— Marcus Aurelius

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

— Marcus Aurelius

Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to correspond; so is the whole universe.

— Marcus Aurelius

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

— Marcus Aurelius

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

— Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.

— Marcus Aurelius

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

— Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

— Marcus Aurelius

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

— Marcus Aurelius