Marcus Aurelius Quotations

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

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

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

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

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

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

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Men exist for the sake of one another.

The perfumes at our board last night - Were exquisite, I won't deny it, But we were starved, we were outright, For meat, could no how come by it

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.

Life is not merely being alive, but being well

So great is the modesty of your mind and face, Sophronius that I wonder you should ever have become a father

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body yet endures

Since you are so well matched, and so much alike - a very bad wife, and a very bad husband - I wonder that you do not agree

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.

Philo declares he never dines at home, and that is no exaggeration: He has no place whereat to dine in Rome, Unless he hooks an invitation

I would rather smell of nothing than of perfume

Fortune gives many too much, but none enough

Glory paid to our ashes comes too late

If it does not fit leave it, if it is not true do not say it.

He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse

He who prefers to give to Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half

He misses what is meant by epigram - who thinks it only frivolous flimflam

Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the ruling part.

Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.

Knowledge the clue to life can give: Then wherefore hesitate to live

It certainly is uncomfortable for everybody. It's somewhat of an anomaly. We're still in August but temperatures like this are uncommon.