[Before making a decision] The first thing to do – don't get worked up. For everything happens according to the nature of all things, and in a short … - Marcus Aurelius
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[Before making a decision] The first thing to do – don't get worked up. For everything happens according to the nature of all things, and in a short time you'll be nobody and nowhere even as the great emperors Hadrian and Augustus are now. The next thing to do – consider carefully the task at hand for what it is, while remembering that your purpose is to be a good human being. Get straight to doing what nature requires of you, and speak as you see most just and fitting – with kindness, modesty, and sincerity.
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.
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011) (CC BY)
Also Known As
Native Name:
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Alternative Names:
Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
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Marcus Annius Verus
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Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus
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Verissimus
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Marcus Aurelius Verus
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Antoninus
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.
