Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.

The universe is a single life comprising one substance and one soul.

All is as thinking makes it so

Everything is but what we think it.

Let every action aim solely at the common good.

Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.

Get rid of the judgement ... get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself.

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

Leave the wrong done by another where the wrong arose.

Give full attention and devotion to each act.

Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.

Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.

The best sort of revenue is not to be like him who did the injury.

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?

Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity.

When you have done a good deed that another has had the benefit of, why do you need a third reward-as fools do-praise for having done well or looking for a favor in return.

Consider how many do not even know your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how those who now praise you will presently blame you.

A lucky chance is constant in nothing but inconstancy.

I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice.

Praise adds nothing to beauty--makes it neither better nor worse.

Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements.

No form of nature is inferior to art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.

All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.

Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together - they compose the world.

It is a shame for the soul to be first to give way in this life, when thy body does not give way.

...in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.

It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.

The world is mere change, and this life, opinion.

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.

Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.

Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.

Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.

The passing minute is every man's equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours.

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

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about. If it is good to say or do something, then it is even better to be criticized for having said or done it.

A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

In an expression of true gratitude, sadness is conspicuous only by its absence

Let no act be done without purpose.

The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct.

Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.

The intelligence of the universe is social.

Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present - thoughtfully, justly.

He does not write at all whose poems no man reads

It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.