Marcus Aurelius Quotes

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

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

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

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Be content to seem what you really are.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

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

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Men exist for the sake of one another.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

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.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

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

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

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

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

Each day provides its own gifts.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.

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

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

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

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

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

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘