Marcus Aurelius Quotes

483 Sourced Quotes

Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.

Marcus Aurelius
Take the shortest route. The one that nature planned - to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculations and pretension.

Marcus Aurelius
Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.

Marcus Aurelius
When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this short speech to yourself: I am getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humour for going about that I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and keep warm beneath the counterpane? Well! but this is a comfortable way of living.

Marcus Aurelius
If it's in your control, why do you do it? If it's in someone else's control, then who are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way. Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage.

Marcus Aurelius
Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.

Marcus Aurelius
If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons.

Marcus Aurelius
Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before his moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus....

Marcus Aurelius
The sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns, and nobody can lose what is not his.

Marcus Aurelius
Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both.

Marcus Aurelius
What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts.

Marcus Aurelius
Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within.

Marcus Aurelius
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time-even when hard at work.

Marcus Aurelius
Consider frequently the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another. For things are somehow implicated with one another, and all in a way friendly to one another.

Marcus Aurelius
Body. Soul. Mind. Sensations: the body. Desires: the soul. Reasoning: the mind.

Marcus Aurelius
When we consider we are bound to be serviceable to mankind, and bear with their faults, we shall perceive there is a common tie of nature and relation between us.

Marcus Aurelius
Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.

Marcus Aurelius
Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of great relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are ONE.

Marcus Aurelius
From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.

Marcus Aurelius
Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.

Marcus Aurelius
Men are born for each other's sake, so either teach people or endure them

Marcus Aurelius
No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothings can happen to you that is not required by Nature.

Marcus Aurelius
Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend...or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

Marcus Aurelius
Let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.

Marcus Aurelius
Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?

Marcus Aurelius
It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think.

Marcus Aurelius
Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.

Marcus Aurelius
If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?

Marcus Aurelius
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.

Marcus Aurelius
Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.

Marcus Aurelius