Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (180 AD)

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Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.

Marcus Aurelius
Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

Marcus Aurelius
Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

Marcus Aurelius
To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is perfection of character.

Marcus Aurelius
In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both better... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents.

Marcus Aurelius
A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.

Marcus Aurelius
Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.

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

Marcus Aurelius
All men are made one for another: either then teach them better or bear with them.

Marcus Aurelius
Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Marcus Aurelius
As the nature of the universal has given to every rational being all the powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. For as the universal nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purpose as it may have designed.

Marcus Aurelius
Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.

Marcus Aurelius
The universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect... or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of a sequence in a manner; or individual elements are the origin of all things. In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.

Marcus Aurelius
How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!

Marcus Aurelius
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, for it requires that we should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.

Marcus Aurelius
In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present: "I am rising to a man's work."

Marcus Aurelius
Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.

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
He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.

Marcus Aurelius
Death,—a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.

Marcus Aurelius
Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Marcus Aurelius
If... it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt.

Marcus Aurelius
Remember this— that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

Marcus Aurelius
There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Marcus Aurelius
Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic.

Marcus Aurelius
Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements.

Marcus Aurelius
Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

Marcus Aurelius
The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh—gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into our thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don't try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don't let the mind start in with judgments, calling it 'good' or 'bad.'

Marcus Aurelius
This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...

Marcus Aurelius
You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. (Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?)

Marcus Aurelius