Marcus aurelius quotes

In an expression of true gratitude, sadness is conspicuous only by its absence

Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action.

Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'

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

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.

Remember that there is a God who desires neither praise nor glory from men created in his image, but rather that they, guided by the understanding given them, should in their actions become like unto him.

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.

Give yourself a gift: the present moment.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about. If it is good to say or do something, then it is even better to be criticized for having said or done it.

Think of what you have rather than of what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.

A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for.

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.

While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Do not be ashamed of help.

Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it--turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

Whosoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whosoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

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

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

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

Each day provides its own gifts.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

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.

Your task is to stand straight; not to be held straight.

Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before his moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus.

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

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.

It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.

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

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.

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.

Nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth.

...in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found.

A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

I'm going to be meeting with people today who talk too much - people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I can't imagine a world without such people.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

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

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.

Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives.

Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

A person's life is dyed with the color of his imagination.

The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level.

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

Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

Both happiness and unhappiness depend on perception

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.

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.

Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.

Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.

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

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?

Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'

Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.

What does not benefit the hive is no benefit to the bee.

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.

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

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Past and future have no power over you. Just the present - and even that can be minimized.

Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow," and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or 'twill be gone and nevermore within your reach.

Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.

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

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Put from you the belief that 'I have been wronged', and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

Everything that happens, happens as it should.

Nothing befalls any man which he is not fitted to endure.

When you are annoyed at someone's mistake, immediately look at yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in thinking that good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame. By being mindful of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you realize that the person was under stress, and could do little else. And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.

In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself.

Because other people are fools, must you be so too?

You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth.

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

Live each day as if it be your last.

Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

So much worse are the consequences of anger than its causes.

There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.

Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one's energy, that one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we're practically showered with them. It's good to keep this in mind.

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

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 ... then make that day count!

Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

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.

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

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

Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.

A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass.

Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

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

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.

Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise.

This is the chief thing: be not perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.

Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.

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

The main thing we were made for is to work with others.

What we do in life ripples in eternity.

All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else. For things are interdependent, and they combine to form this universal order. There is only one universe made up of all things, and one creator who pervades them; there is one substance and one law, namely, common reason in all thinking creatures, and all truth is one-if, as we believe, there is only one path of perfection for all beings who share the same mind.

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. It is in your power to erase this judgment about it. If anything in your own nature gives you pain, you are who hinders you from correcting your opinion.

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.