Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (180 AD)

401 Sourced Quotes

View all Marcus Aurelius Quotes
If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong.

Marcus Aurelius
Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What's surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, "I have a purpose," and the other goods as well.

Marcus Aurelius
It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

Marcus Aurelius
We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.

Marcus Aurelius
Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road.

Marcus Aurelius
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath.

Marcus Aurelius
Small too even the longest fame thereafter, which is itself subject to a succession of little men who quickly die, and have no knowledge of themselves, let alone of those long dead.

Marcus Aurelius
Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.

Marcus Aurelius
Be mindful at all times of the following: the nature of the whole universe, the nature of the part that is me, the relation of the one to the other, the one so vast, the other so small.

Marcus Aurelius
Reason and the reasoning faculty need no foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own purposes. They move within themselves, and make directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in accordance with them are called right acts, for they lead along the right road.

Marcus Aurelius
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

Marcus Aurelius
Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.

Marcus Aurelius
Get rid of the judgement... get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself.

Marcus Aurelius
The offender needs pity, not wrath; those who must needs be corrected, should be treated with tact and gentleness; and one must be always ready to learn better. 'The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.'

Marcus Aurelius
Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away.

Marcus Aurelius
Failing to understand the workings of one's own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.

Marcus Aurelius
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.

Marcus Aurelius
The gods gave me a father who ruled over me and rid me of any trace of arrogance and showed me that one can live in a palace without bodyguards, extravagant attire, chandeliers, statues, and other luxuries. He taught me that it is possible to live instead pretty much in the manner of a private citizen without losing any of the dignity and authority a ruler must possess to discharge his imperial duties effectively.

Marcus Aurelius
Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.

Marcus Aurelius
Thanks to the gods I didn't spend much time while growing up with my grandfather's mistress and preserved the flower of my youth, waiting for the proper time to demonstrate my virility.

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

Marcus Aurelius
Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.

Marcus Aurelius
It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.

Marcus Aurelius
Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad.

Marcus Aurelius
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
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
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