Marcus Aurelius Quotes

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 ... then make that day count!

Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.

Let no act be done without purpose.

How can a man find a sensible way to live? One way and one only- Philosophy. And my philosophy means keeping that vital spark within you free from damage and degradation, using it to transcend pain and pleasure, doing everything with a purpose, avoiding lies and hypocrisy, not relying on another person's actions or failings. To accept everything that comes, and everything that is given, as coming from that same spiritual source.

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 ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.

Everything that happens, happens as it should.

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?

And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?

All is as thinking makes it so

When men hate or blame you, or say hurtful things about you, look deeply into their hearts and see what kind of men they are. You'll see how unnecessary it is to strain after their good opinion. Yet you must still think kindly of them. they are your neighbors. The gods help them as they do you, by dreams and oracles, to win their hearts' desires.

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else. For things are interdependent, and they combine to form this universal order. There is only one universe made up of all things, and one creator who pervades them; there is one substance and one law, namely, common reason in all thinking creatures, and all truth is one-if, as we believe, there is only one path of perfection for all beings who share the same mind.

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

Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

Leave other people's mistakes where they lie.

All things fade and quickly turn to myth.

Give full attention and devotion to each act.

The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be, become one yourself!

From my grandfather's father, I learned to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.

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

I seek the truth...it is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance that does harm.

What does not benefit the hive is no benefit to the bee.

Remember that all is opinion.

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.

Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic.

Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity.

You exist but as a part inherent in a greater whole. Do not live as though you had a thousand years before you. The common due impends; while you live, and while you may, be good.

At day's first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that "I am rising for the work of man."

Remember that even if you were to live for three thousand years, or thirty thousand, you could not lose any other life than the one you have, and there will be no other life after it. So the longest and the shortest lives are the same. The present moment is shared by all living creatures, but the time that is past is gone forever. No one can lose the past or the future, for if they don't belong to you, how can they be taken from you?

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.

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

Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature?

A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.

Our life is what our thoughts make it. Do every act of your life as if it were your last. In a word, your life is short. You must make the most of the present with the aid of reason and justice. Since it is possible that you may be quitting life this very moment, govern every act and thought accordingly.

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.

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding.

Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.

Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road.

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.

In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it

Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.