Marcus Aurelius Quotes

It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.

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

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

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Both happiness and unhappiness depend on perception

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Whosoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whosoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

Your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

Dig within. There lies the wellspring of good.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.

The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and 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.

Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. .. We should not say 'I am an Athenian' or 'I am a Roman' but 'I am a citizen of the Universe.

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.

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.

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

The main thing we were made for is to work with others.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

What we do now echoes in eternity.

A man should be upright, not kept upright.

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

Man must be arched and buttressed from within, else the temple wavers to the dust.

Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.

Love the people with whom fate brings you together

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

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

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

Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.

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

Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

You are a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.

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

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.

Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?

Men exist for the sake of one another.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead - and to realize that no expense should be grudged for this purpose.

Receive the gifts of fortune without pride, and part with them without reluctance.

Nothing is worth doing pointlessly.

Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.

Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.

That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.