Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (180 AD)

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Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.

Marcus Aurelius
The whole contains nothing which is not or its advantage; and all natures indeed have this common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to generate anything harmful to itself.

Marcus Aurelius
Things themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it

Marcus Aurelius
Whatever may befall you, it was preordained for you from everlasting.

Marcus Aurelius
The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.

Marcus Aurelius
All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

Marcus Aurelius
Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...

Marcus Aurelius
He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.

Marcus Aurelius
That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.

Marcus Aurelius
That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.

Marcus Aurelius
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

Marcus Aurelius
Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.... But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.

Marcus Aurelius
No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?... It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

Marcus Aurelius
Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.

Marcus Aurelius
Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.

Marcus Aurelius
Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

Marcus Aurelius
Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more sutiable?

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
Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee?

Marcus Aurelius
He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is. And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is. But he who has failed in any one of these things could not even say for what purpose he exists himself. What then dost thou think of him who [avoids or] seeks the praise of those who applaud, of men who know not either where they are or who they are?

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
Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and from what kind of governor of it you are descended; that you have a set period assigned you to act in, and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be lost beyond recovery.

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

Marcus Aurelius
Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.

Marcus Aurelius
All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road, thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself.

Marcus Aurelius
The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.

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 world is nothing but change, our life is only perception.

Marcus Aurelius
Enough of this wretched life and murmuring and apish tricks. Why art thou disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee? Is it the form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it. But besides these there is nothing. Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and better. It is the same whether we examine these things for a hundred years or three.

Marcus Aurelius
Your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

Marcus Aurelius