Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.

How barbarous, to deny men the privilege of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests! Yet, in a sense, this is just what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests. You say they are mistaken? Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant.

Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.

A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.

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

Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives.

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

Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.

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.

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.

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

Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.

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

Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.

People find pressure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.

Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives us.

All men are made one for another: either then teach them better or bear with them.

Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together - they compose the world.

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.

There is a limit circumscribed to your time – if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return

The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhere

If you are distressed by something, it is due to your own estimate of it; and you have the power to change it at will.

Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.

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.

Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.

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

Change your attitude to the things that bother you and you will be aware of them.

If anyone can refute me-show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective-I'l l gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

Snow endures but for a season, and joy comes with the morning.

When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it.

Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one.

I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth.

Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. 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. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Nothing befalls any man which he is not fitted to endure.

Glory arrives too late when it comes only to one's ashes

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

Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task.

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities .

There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Receive without conceit, release without struggle.

A man is a little soul carrying around a courpse.

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.

To them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.

Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

No one wearies of benefits received.