Marcus Aurelius Quotes

16th Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 and Stoic philosopher

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana (27 BC to 180), an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Bio from: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Alternative Names: Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus • Marcus Annius Verus • Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus • Verissimus • Marcus Aurelius Verus • Antoninus

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Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’

Ask yourself at every moment. Is this necessary?

And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing. (Hays translation)

You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.

You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee?

In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.

Things have no hold on the soul. They have no access to it, cannot move or direct it. It is moved and directed by itself alone. It takes the things before it and interprets them as it sees fit. (Hays translation)

Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

Of things that are external, happen what will to that which can suffer by external accidents. Those things that suffer let them complain themselves, if they will; as for me, as long as I conceive no such thing, that that which is happened is evil, I have no hurt; and it is in my power not to conceive any such thing.

The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.

Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)

No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. (Hays translation)

But that which is useful is the better.

Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. (Hays translation)