Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Though you break your heart, men will go on as before.

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

But if anything in thy own dispositiongives thee pain, who hinders thee from correcting thy opinion? And even if thou art pained because thou art not doing some particular thing which seems to thee to be right, why dost thou not rather act than complain?- But some insuperable obstacle is in the way?- Do not be grieved then, for the cause of its not being done depends not on thee.- But it is not worth while to live if this cannot be done.- Take thy departure then from life contentedly, just as he dies who is in full activity, and well pleased too with the things which are obstacles.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you.

Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Be satisfied with your business, and learn to love what you were bred to.

Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor

He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything which has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time without end; for all things are of one kin and of one form.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

Nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Everything is mere opinion.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it.

In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it.

Think 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.

Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

My city and state are Rome. But as a human being? The world. So for me, "good" can only mean what's good for both communities.

I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass.

Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see that they have happened or because he would show a great spirit he is firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit should be stronger than wisdom.

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.

Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.

Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place and better fortified than this, hath no man.

Always follow these two rules: first, act only on what your reasoning mind proposes for the good of humanity, and second, change your opinion if someone shows you it's wrong. This change of mind must proceed only from the conviction that it's both correct and for the common good, but not because it will give you pleasure and make you popular.

Think on this doctrine, - that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons.

A good disposition is invincible, if it be genuine.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.

It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

People exist for one another.

No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such

Gluttony and drunkenness have two evils attendant on them; they make the carcass smart, as well as the pocket.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

He that lives alone lives in danger; society avoids many dangers.

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious.

Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'

A spider is proud when it has caught a fly; one man when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians. Are not these robbers, if you examine their opinions?

It is not the body, nor the personality that is the true self. The true self is eternal. Even on the point of death we can say to ourselves, "my true self is free. I cannot be contained."

All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

We are born for cooperation

He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.