Marcus Aurelius Quotes

From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.

But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions. (Hays translation)

It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.

Where have they gone, the brilliant, the insightful ones, the proud? (Hays translation)

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

Consider all that you've gone through, all that you've survived. And that the story of your life is done, your assignment complete. How many good things have you seen? How much pain and pleasure have you resisted? How many honors have you declined? How many unkind people have you been kind to? (Hays translation)

[...] As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad, and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes has no value for him.

To accept it without arrogance, to let it go with indifference. (Hays translation)

The universe is flux, life is opinion.

To love only what happens... no greater harmony

Epithets for yourself: Upright. Modest. Straightforward. Sane. Cooperative. Try not to exchange for others.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.

"Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground—So is the race of man." Leaves, also, are thy children; and leaves, too, are they who cry out so if they are worthy of credit, or bestow their praise, or on the contrary curse, or secretly blame and sneer; and leaves, in like manner, are those who shall receive and transmit a man's fame to after-times. For all such things as these "are produced in the season of spring," as the poet says; then the wind casts them down; then the forest produces other leaves in their places. But a brief existence is common to all things, and yet thou avoidest and pursuest all things as if they would be eternal.

An infected mind is a far more dangerous pestilence than any plague—one only threatens your life, the other destroys your character.

Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.