Marcus Aurelius quotes
Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD. His private notebook, later published as Meditations, was never meant for readers: it is a ruler talking himself into patience, duty and calm, one entry at a time.
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good person should be. Be one.”
“If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.”
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself.”
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
“Confine yourself to the present.”
“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together.”
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
“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.”
“Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live.”
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.”
“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.”
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
“To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.”
“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness.”
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.”
“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.”
“You always own the option of having no opinion.”
“It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live.”
“A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.”
“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.”
“Observe constantly that all things take place by change.”
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.”
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change.”
“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
“When you have assumed these names - good, modest, truthful, rational, a man of equanimity, and magnanimous - take care that you do not change these names.”
“Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.”
“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.”
“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last.”
“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.”
“Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.”
“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun.”
“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess.”
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”
“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.”
“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?”
“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are.”
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
“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.”
“Remember that to change your mind and follow someone who sets you right is to be none the less free.”
“The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
“Receive without pride, let go without attachment.”
“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”
“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.'”
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”
“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”
“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does.”
“To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds.”
“The best answer to anger is silence.”
“Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.”
“Very soon you'll be ashes, or bones. A mere name, at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo.”
“No random actions, none not based on underlying principles.”
“Give yourself a gift: the present moment.”
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.”
“External thinks are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current.”
“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”
“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.”
“Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.”
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
“And in the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting.”
“What we do now echoes in eternity.”
“Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.”
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!”
“If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it.”
“Remember this – that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.”
“Take full account of the excellences which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.”
“Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature.”
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
“Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.”
“Forward, as occasion offers. Never look around to see whether any shall note it. Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter.”
“Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.”
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
“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 opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
“A man's life is what his thoughts make of it.”
“He who pays no attention to what his neighbor does, says or thinks, preferring to concentrate on making his own actions appropriate and justifiable.”
“Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
“Choose not to be harmed — and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed — and you haven't been.”
“Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.”
“It is in your power to withdraw into yourself whenever you desire.”
“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do.”
“Put from you the belief that 'I have been wronged', and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.”
“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.”
“We ought to do good to others as simply and as naturally as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes.”
“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.”
“The first step: Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all.”
“Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen.”
“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses.”
“The universe is transformation: life is opinion.”
“Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.”
“When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help.”
“Frightened of change? But what can exist without it?”
“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
“Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will.”
“The first rule of all is that the mind should be free from passion.”
“The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control.”
“Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever.”
“Receive without conceit, release without struggle.”
“Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men.”
“In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight.”
“That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.”
“Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man.”
“Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and change.”
“Say nothing which can ruin you or others.”
“Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.”
“Where a man can live, he can also live well.”
“To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.”
“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have.”
“Stick with first impressions. Don't extrapolate. And nothing can happen to you.”
“In your actions, don't procrastinate. In your conversations, don't confuse. In your thoughts, don't wander.”
“A rational being is one who can reflect and question and then change his own mind.”
“A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for.”
“Give yourself fully to every experience. Each situation is an opportunity to be present.”
“Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed.”
“Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people.”
“A man's life is dyed in the colors of his imagination.”
“A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.”
“Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power: sincerity and dignity; industriousness.”
“Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”
“All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well.”
“Hasten to examine your own ruling principle and that of the universe and that of your neighbor.”
“To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing - here is perfection of character.”
“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains.”
“The soul is dyed the color of its leisure thoughts.”
“Don't be overawed by what other people think. Be aware of what goes on in your own mind.”
“Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.”
“Let your chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions.”
“How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that aroused them in us.”
“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”
“Choose not to be harmed, and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed, and you haven't been.”
“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly.”
“Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions.”