The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.
Marcus AureliusPeople who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time-even when hard at work.
Marcus AureliusThe 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 AureliusThings themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it
Marcus AureliusAll things are in the act of change; thou thyself in ceaseless transformation and partial decay, and the whole universe with thee.
Marcus AureliusA great estate is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see wealthy persons live scandalously and miserably; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not an estate, that makes a man good for something.
Marcus Aurelius