Marcus Aurelius - Man Quotes

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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
Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.

Marcus Aurelius
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Marcus Aurelius
Man, you have been a citizen in this world city, what does it matter whether for five years or fifty?

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
Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together...

Marcus Aurelius
The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.

Marcus Aurelius
There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and a wise man, will there not be at least some one to say to himself, Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns us.—This is what is said of a good man. But in our own case how many other things are there for which there are many who wish to get rid of us.

Marcus Aurelius
Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,—there, if one must speak out, the real man.

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
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
Consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.

Marcus Aurelius
Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down... what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?

Marcus Aurelius
For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it is the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness [of deserting his post].

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
A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

Marcus Aurelius
Art thy not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it? Just as if the eye demanded recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking. For as these members are formed for a particular purpose... so also is man formed by nature to acts of benevolence.

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
Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

Marcus Aurelius
Pray look upon the plants and birds, the ants, spiders, and bees, and you will see them all exerting their nature, and busy in their station. Pray, shall not a man act like a man?

Marcus Aurelius
Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.

Marcus Aurelius
Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

Marcus Aurelius
Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

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
The passing minute is every man's equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours.

Marcus Aurelius
It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him.

Marcus Aurelius
Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.

Marcus Aurelius
Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art not simple or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy power.

Marcus Aurelius
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such

Marcus Aurelius
A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

Marcus Aurelius