"Remember that man lives only in the..." - Quote by Marcus Aurelius
Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.
More by Marcus Aurelius
“In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors.”
“It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.”
“Every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another.”
More on Present
“Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.”
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.”
“So eager are our people to obliterate the present.”
More on Time
“It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.”
“Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.”
“The time to work is shorter all the time and if you waste it you ... have committed a sin for which there is no forgiveness.”