Marcus Aurelius Quotes

470 Sourced Quotes

Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind.

Marcus Aurelius
The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.

Marcus Aurelius
Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of thy being, and of that which is incident to it.

Marcus Aurelius
From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and be abused.

Marcus Aurelius
Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together - they compose the world.

Marcus Aurelius
How barbarous, to deny men the privilege of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests! Yet, in a sense, this is just what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests. You say they are mistaken? Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant.

Marcus Aurelius
He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.

Marcus Aurelius
Wipe out the imagination. Stop pulling the strings. Confine thyself to the present.... Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and the material.... Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.

Marcus Aurelius
The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.

Marcus Aurelius
Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

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
Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it—still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a van that produces grapes without looking for anything in return.

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
The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.

Marcus Aurelius
As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

Marcus Aurelius
Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined.

Marcus Aurelius
Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

Marcus Aurelius
Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'

Marcus Aurelius
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.

Marcus Aurelius
Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Marcus Aurelius
If thou workest at that which is before thee... expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to Nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

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
In reading and writing, you cannot lay down rules until you have learnt to obey them. Much more so in life.

Marcus Aurelius
Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.

Marcus Aurelius
Your disposition will be suitable to that which you most frequently think on; for the soul is, as it were, tinged with the color and complexion of its own thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius