Marcus Aurelius Quotes

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In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.

Marcus Aurelius
Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.

Marcus Aurelius
Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

Marcus Aurelius
Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

Marcus Aurelius
If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common weal?

Marcus Aurelius
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

Marcus Aurelius
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

Marcus Aurelius
The stone that is thrown into the air is none the worse for falling down, and none the better for going up.

Marcus Aurelius
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river; the "what" is in constant flux, the "why" has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us - a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

Marcus Aurelius
Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces - to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What's thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it - and makes it burn still higher.

Marcus Aurelius
Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and temperance be extinguished before thy death?

Marcus Aurelius
Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?

Marcus Aurelius
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.

Marcus Aurelius
Neither in thy actions be sluggish nor in thy conversation without method, nor wandering in thy thoughts, nor let there be in thy soul inward contention nor external effusion, nor in life be so busy as to have no leisure.

Marcus Aurelius
Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?

Marcus Aurelius
If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good.

Marcus Aurelius
Outward objects cannot take hold of the soul, nor force their passage into her, nor set any of her wheels going. No, the impression comes from herself, and it is her own motions which affect her. As for the contingencies of fortune, they are either great or little, according to the opinion she has of her own strength.

Marcus Aurelius
The greatest part of what we say and do is really unnecessary. If a man takes this to heart, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.

Marcus Aurelius
Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.

Marcus Aurelius
Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.

Marcus Aurelius
Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains.

Marcus Aurelius
I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?

Marcus Aurelius
Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which thou returnest

Marcus Aurelius
Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it.

Marcus Aurelius
I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice.

Marcus Aurelius
The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself.

Marcus Aurelius
Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more.

Marcus Aurelius
If a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come.

Marcus Aurelius
Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill.

Marcus Aurelius
Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What's closer to nature's heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can't you see? It's just the same with you - and just as vital to nature.

Marcus Aurelius