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.

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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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At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’ (Hays translation)

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

Don't let yourself forget how many doctors have died, after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others' ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality. How many warriors, after inflicting thousands of casualties themselves. How many tyrants, after abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they were themselves immortal. (Hays translation)

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

“Those who have forgotten where the road leads.” “They are at odds with what is all around them”—the all-directing logos. And “they find alien what they meet with every day.” (Hays translation)

That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.

All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.

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.

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

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.

It needs to realize that what happens to everyone—bad and good alike—is neither good nor bad. (Hays translation)

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

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.