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.
Marcus AureliusThink of what you have rather than of what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.
Marcus AureliusThe whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it - either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else that you alone choose.
Marcus AureliusWhen you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic-what defines a human being-is to work with others.
Marcus AureliusIs your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .
Marcus Aurelius