Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Man is born for deeds of kindness.

Truth and ceremony are two things.

A rational nature admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind.

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and ay, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?'

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.

Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self respect, to hate any person, to curse, to act the hypocrite.

It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him.

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.

And yet, after all, what is posthumous fame? Altogether vanity.

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

As for literature, thefts cannot harm it, while the lapse of ages augments its value

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

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

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

The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else.

God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose.

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

Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole.

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don't.

Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.

Because other people are fools, must you be so too?

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet .

Do not suffer a sudden impression to overbear your judgment.

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

Do not act as if you had a thousand years to live.

It is a sin to persue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as a evil.

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

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

We are the other of the other

Consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.

The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.

Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.

Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish.

Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.

The gods sustain and guide all their works.

But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.

Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within.

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities .

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.

The nature of the All moved to make the universe.

But that which is useful is the better.

All things are in the act of change; thou thyself in ceaseless transformation and partial decay, and the whole universe with thee.

It is the duty of men to love even those who injure them.

The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.

Prize that which is best in the universe; and this is that which useth everything and ordereth everything.

All things fade and quickly turn to myth.

From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition.