Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.
This is the source.
Man must be arched and buttressed from within, else the temple will crumble to dust.
Look well into thyself; there is a source which will always spring up if thou wilt always search there.
Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power: sincerity and dignity; industriousness, and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank; be temperate in manner and speech; carry yourself with authority.
This is the source.
When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.
This is the source.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
This is the source.
Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.
This is the source.
How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not.
This is the source.
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. If the gods exist, then to abandon human beings is not frightening; the gods would never subject you to harm. And if they don't exist, or don't care what happens to us, what would be the point of living in a world without gods or Providence? But they do exist, they do care what happens to us, and everything a person needs to avoid real harm they have placed within him.
This is the source.
Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad.
This is the source.
You cannot lose another life than the one you're living now, or live another one than the one you're losing.
This is the source.
You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, "What are you thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones - the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you'd be ashamed to be caught thinking.
This is the source.
If all the rest is common coin, then what is unique to the good man?
To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false beliefs. Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying God - saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust.
This is the source.
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, "I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"
This is the source.
If an action or utterance is appropriate, then it's appropriate for you. Don't be put off by other people's comments and criticism. If it's right to say or do it, then it's the right thing for you to do or say.
This is the source.
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.
This is the source.
It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
This is the source.
The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't.
This is the source.
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.
This is the source.
Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?
This is the source.
Let the body avoid discomfort (if it can), and if it feels it, say so. But the soul is what feels fear and pain, and what conceives of them in the first place, and it suffers nothing.
This is the source.
Unendurable pain brings its own end with it. Chronic pain is always endurable: the intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body, the mind remains undiminished. And the parts that pain affects - let them speak for themselves, if they can.
This is the source.
Look at who they really are, the people whose approval you long for, and what their minds are really like. Then you won't blame the ones who make mistakes they can't help, and you won't feel a need for their approval. You will have seen the sources of both - their judgments and their actions.
This is the source.
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
This is the source.
Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.
This is the source.
Either pain affects the body (which is the body's problem) or it affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquility. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.
This is the source.
Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it - turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself - so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.
This is the source.
Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, "Why is this so unbearable? Why can't I endure it?" You'll be embarrassed to answer.
This is the source.
Give yourself a gift: the present moment.
People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as moral. What does it matter to you if they say x about you, or think y?
This is the source.
The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. Not to see this is ignorance. To see it and not seek safety means misery.
This is the source.
To fear pain is to fear something that's bound to happen, the world being what it is - and that again is blasphemy. While if you pursue pleasure, you can hardly avoid wrongdoing - which is manifestly blasphemous.
This is the source.
To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice - it degrades you.
This is the source.
Isn't it better to do what's up to you - like a free man - than to be passively controlled by what isn't, like a slave or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don't care about what's up to us.
Start praying like this and you'll see.
Not "some way to sleep with her" - but a way to stop wanting to.
Not "some way to get rid of him" - but a way to stop trying.
Not "some way to save my child" - but a way to lose your fear.
Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens.
This is the source.
Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?
This is the source.
As long as you do what's proper to your nature, and accept what the world's nature has in store - as long as you work for others' good, by any and all means - what is there that can harm you?
This is the source.
How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.
This is the source.
There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being - and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners.
This is the source.
If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you can't live it in a consistent way.
This is the source.
Everything you're trying to reach - by taking the long way round - you could have right now, this moment. If you'd only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you'd only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice.
This is the source.
If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance - doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth -
If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present)...then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.
This is the source.
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.
This is the source.
Find something you like? Get a new inspiring quote every day!
Get the free Daily Quote by email:
You should follow me on twitter here.