Quotes by Marcus Aurelius

• The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.
• A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
• The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
• Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.
• The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
• Your life is what your thoughts make it.
• You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
• You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
• Where a man can live, he can also live well.
• 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.
• When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.
• What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.
• We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
• We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.
• The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
• Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
• 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.
• To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.
• To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
• To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
• To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
• There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.
• The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
• The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.
• The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
• The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.
• The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.
• The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.
• Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
• 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.
• How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.
• I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
• If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
• It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
• Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.
• Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.
• Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
• Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
• Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
• Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
• Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
• How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
• Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
• Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
• Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
• Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
• Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.
• Poverty is the mother of crime.
• Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
• Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
• A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
• 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.
• That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
• The act of dying is one of the acts of life.
• Men exist for the sake of one another.
• Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
• Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, "This is a misfortune" but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."
• Our life is what our thoughts make it.
• Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.
• Anger cannot be dishonest.
• Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
• Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.
• Be content to seem what you really are.
• Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
• Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
• Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
• Confine yourself to the present.
• And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
• Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.
• A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
• He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
• Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.
• Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.
• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
• Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
• Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
• Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
• Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
• Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.
• 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.
• Each day provides its own gifts.
• Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
• Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
• Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
• What we do in life echoes in eternity.
• Gratitude is the sign of a noble soul
• Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well
• Dream by night; full emotions make your dormizations come revealed,
• Strength comes not from muscle, but from tenacity of will.
• The impediment to action advances action
• Fear is the darkest shadow that hides our true potential.
• Believe in yourself, for only you hold the power to shape your destiny.
• 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.
• Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
• You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.
• You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
• Success is not just about climbing the ladder; sometimes, it’s about realizing it’s propped against the wrong wall.
• Success is not a destination; it’s a messy journey paved with coffee spills and observant smiles.
• Wisdom is knowing that the worst decision often teaches the best lesson.
• Success is like a pizza; it's a combination of the right ingredients baked at the right temperature, yet often topped with unexpected surprises.
• Success is a series of small victories; sometimes the biggest one is simply winning the day!