Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.”

“Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.”

“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life”

“Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.”

“The world is nothing but change, our life is only perception.”

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

“This is the mark of a perfect character - to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.”

“If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.”

“The whole contains nothing which is not or its advantage; and all natures indeed have this common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to generate anything harmful to itself.”

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

“Let thine occupations be few, saith the sage, if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life.”

“There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.”

“A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - that is myself.”

“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.”

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

“There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.”

“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.”

“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”

“No one wearies of benefits received.”

“Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.”

“The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.”

“I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself.”

“Don't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand. ...Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present.”

“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, 'I awake to do the work of a man.'”

“Truth and ceremony are two things.”