Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

Men exist for the sake of one another.

Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.

A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

He does not write at all whose poems no man reads

Everything is but what we think it.

If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.

Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for.

There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe.

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

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.

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

Men exist for each other. Then either improve them, or put up with them.

Men are born for each other's sake, so either teach people or endure them

Everything is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.

All men are made one for another: either then teach them better or bear with them.

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.

It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care not about it.

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

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

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

He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live.

When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic-what defines a human being-is to work with others.

Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.

Remember this - that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

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.

Why should anyone be afraid of change? What can take place without it? What can be more pleasing or more suitable to universal nature? Can you take your bath without the firewood undergoing a change? Can you eat without the food undergoing a change? And can anything useful be done without change? Don't you see that for you to change is just the same, and is equally necessary for universal nature?

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

Nature set a limit on sleep - as it did on eating and drinking. And youre over the limit. But not of working. There youre still below your quota. You dont love yourself enough. Or youd love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. They even forget to wash and eat.

Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.

Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.

Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.

Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

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

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

Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses.

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

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.

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

Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.

Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

What we do in life ripples in eternity.

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

To expect an impossibility is madness.

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

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.

It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.

Let every action aim solely at the common good.

Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.

A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation.

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.

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.

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