Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (180 AD)

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

Marcus Aurelius
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

Marcus Aurelius
It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.

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
Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?

Marcus Aurelius
A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - that is myself.

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
Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest.

Marcus Aurelius
When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it.

Marcus Aurelius
Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance.

Marcus Aurelius
Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about.

Marcus Aurelius
It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad?

Marcus Aurelius
External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.

Marcus Aurelius
I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.

Marcus Aurelius
In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable-boy's. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.

Marcus Aurelius