Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.
Because your own strength is unequal to a task, do not assume it is beyond the powers of man.
Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.
It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.
Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.
Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.
No one loses any other life than the one he now lives, nor does one live any other life than that which he will lose.
Live with the gods. And he does so who constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to him.
Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?
No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothings can happen to you that is not required by Nature.
How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not.
Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
People 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.
All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.
One universe made up all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth.
And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
How easy it is to repel and release every impression which is troublesome and immediately to be tranquil.
Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which you see, and out of their substance will make other things and again other things... in order that the world may be ever new.
In the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.
Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging.
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such
But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself.
Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.
The 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.
He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.
It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.
Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.
