Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

"This that I am, whatever it be, is mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason."

"Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you. —Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it."

"Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it."

"That I have such a wife, so obedient."

"The way to peace is to be content with yourself, honor the light of reason within, live in harmony with others, and be grateful to the gods for the universe and your role in it."

"Do, soul, do; abuse and contemn thyself; yet a while and the time for thee to respect thyself, will be at an end."

"Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable."

"For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any one take this from him?"

"Soon you'll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most - and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial."

"How unsound and insincere is he who says, I have determined to deal with thee in a fair way.—What art thou doing, man?"

"A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish they were wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their prejudices."

"Finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded."

"That I have such a wife, so obedient."

"And why is it so hard when things go against you? If it’s imposed by nature, accept it gladly and stop fighting it. And if not, work out what your own nature requires, and aim at that, even if it brings you no glory."

"To grieve or be angry about or fear what happens to you is to be a fugitive from the law of nature."

"Use thyself even unto those things that thou doest at first despair of. For the left hand we see, which for the most part hieth idle because not used; yet doth it hold the bridle with more strength than the right, because it hath been used unto it."

"How plain does it appear that there is not another condition of life so well suited for philosophizing as this in which thou now happenest to be."

"He that knoweth not what the world is, knoweth not where he himself is. And he that knoweth not what the world was made for, cannot possibly know either what are the qualities, or what is the nature of the world."

"We are all mere nuggets of incense on the one altar. Some burn down now, some later - there is no difference."

"Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also, unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after."

"As they that long after figs in winter when they cannot be had; so are they that long after children, before they be granted them."

"A ripe mature man, a perfect sound man; one that could not endure to be flattered; able to govern both himself and others."

"No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, 'no matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished'"

"It is high time for thee, to understand that there is somewhat in thee, better and more divine than either thy passions, or thy sensual appetites and affections."

"Is any man so foolish as to fear change, to which all things that once were not owe their being? And what is it, that is more pleasing and more familiar to the nature of the universe?"

"Studying philosophy instills modesty and straightforwardness in your character."

"HE WHO ACTS UNJUSTLY ACTS IMPIOUSLY."

"They contemn one another, and yet they seek to please one another: and whilest they seek to surpass one another in worldly pomp and greatness, they most debase and prostitute themselves in their better part one to another."

"Time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return."

"But by all means bear this in mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not even your names will be left behind."

"He blind, who cannot see with the eyes of his understanding."

"How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it?"

"Thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption."

"The Roman religion was in fact of the nature of a bargain: men paid certain sacrifices and rites, and the gods granted their favor, irrespective of right or wrong."

"It is only this present, a moment of time, that a man lives: all the rest either has been lived or may never."