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I'm going to be meeting with people today who talk too much - people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I can't imagine a world without such people. -- Marcus Aurelius
No more roundabout discussions of what makes a good man. Be one! -- Marcus Aurelius
VIII. Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shall ever constrain thee either to break thy faith, or to lose thy modesty; to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is a sin to persue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as a evil. -- Marcus Aurelius
If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius
Wait for it patiently - annihilation or metamorphosis. -- Marcus Aurelius
To expect an impossibility is madness. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything is born from change ... there is nothing nature loves more that to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the one that make plants and children? Go deeper. -- Marcus Aurelius
If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. -- Marcus Aurelius
Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth. -- Marcus Aurelius
Short is the little time which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain. -- Marcus Aurelius
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away. -- Marcus Aurelius
Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children. -- Marcus Aurelius
There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won't hail the occasion with delight. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. -- Marcus Aurelius
Every man is worth just so much as the things about which he busies himself. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits. -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil. -- Marcus Aurelius
Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away. -- Marcus Aurelius
The way people behave. They refuse to admire their contemporaries, the people whose lives they share. No, but to be admired by Posterity -- people they've never met and never will -- that's what they set their hearts on. You might as well be upset at not being a hero to your great-grandfather. -- Marcus Aurelius
You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It's as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear. -- Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be, become one yourself! -- Marcus Aurelius
The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level. -- Marcus Aurelius
Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity. -- Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. -- Marcus Aurelius
Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which thou returnest -- Marcus Aurelius
Unhappy am I because this has happened to me.- Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness. -- Marcus Aurelius
The universe, then, is God, of whom the popular gods are manifestations; while legends and myths are allegorical. The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. -- Marcus Aurelius
God give me patience, to reconcile with what I am not able to change
Give me strength to change what I can
And give me wisdom to distinguish one from another. -- Marcus Aurelius
with how little he was satisfied, such as lodging, bed, dress, food, servants; -- Marcus Aurelius
Whatever may happen to you, it was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being, and of that which is incident to it. -- Marcus Aurelius
Swiftly the remembrance of all things is buried in the gulf of eternity. -- Marcus Aurelius
You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
The things ordained for you - teach yourself to be at one with those. And the people who share them with you - treat them with love. With real love. -- Marcus Aurelius
Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them. -- Marcus Aurelius
To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions. -- Marcus Aurelius
The wrongdoer is often the person who left something undone, rather than the person who has done something -- Marcus Aurelius
Remember, however, that thou art formed by nature to bear everything, with respect to which it depends on thy own opinion to make it endurable and tolerable, by thinking that it is either thy interest or thy duty to do this. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thus the Stoics arrive at their main thesis. Virtue alone is admirable, virtue is absolutely self-sufficient; the good man needs no help from circumstances, neither sickness nor adversity can harm him; he is a king, a god among men. -- Marcus Aurelius
Ifit be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid
thyself of, when thou wilt. -- Marcus Aurelius
That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. -- Marcus Aurelius
On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone. -- Marcus Aurelius
All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you. -- Marcus Aurelius
A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve. -- Marcus Aurelius
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? -- Marcus Aurelius
Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back. -- Marcus Aurelius
When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life. -- Marcus Aurelius
That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of thyself. And these too change, and they murmur not. -- Marcus Aurelius
Alexander the Macedonian and his groom by death were brought to the same state; for either they were received among the same seminal principles of the universe, or they were alike dispersed among the atoms. Consider -- Marcus Aurelius
The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not. -- Marcus Aurelius
Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life. -- Marcus Aurelius
If any man can convince me and bring home to me that which I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius
When you are offended at anyone's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. By attending to them, you will forget your anger and learn to live wisely. -- Marcus Aurelius
Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thou mayest foresee ... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. -- Marcus Aurelius
Not to know what the world is is to be ignorant of where you are. Not to know why it's here is to be ignorant of who you are. And what it is. Not to know any of this is to be ignorant of why you're here. -- Marcus Aurelius
In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both
better ... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents. -- Marcus Aurelius
Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine. -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is a stranger's sojourn, a night at an inn. -- Marcus Aurelius
the Stoics had always approved of participation in public life, and this stand struck a chord with the Roman aristocracy, whose code of values placed a premium on political and military activity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter. -- Marcus Aurelius
If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. It is in your power to erase this judgment about it. If anything in your own nature gives you pain, you are who hinders you from correcting your opinion. -- Marcus Aurelius
The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know. -- Marcus Aurelius
I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.
But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions. -- Marcus Aurelius
Sexual ecstasy is like death. It is one of the secrets of nature's wisdom. -- Marcus Aurelius
When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic-what defines a human being-is to work with others. -- Marcus Aurelius
Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was - no better and no worse. -- Marcus Aurelius
Within ten days you will seem a god to those to whom you are now a beast and an ape, if you will return to your principles and the worship of reason. -- Marcus Aurelius
Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker. -- Marcus Aurelius
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours. -- Marcus Aurelius
- Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. -- Marcus Aurelius
Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others. -- Marcus Aurelius
I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look deeply. Don't miss the inherent quality and value of everything. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not act as if you had a thousand years to live. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die. -- Marcus Aurelius
That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements. -- Marcus Aurelius
A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values. -- Marcus Aurelius
My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time. -- Marcus Aurelius
Consider the whole universe whereof thou art but a very little part, and the whole age of the world together, whereof but a short and very momentary portion is allotted unto thee, and all the fates and destinies together, of which how much is it that comes to thy part and share. -- Marcus Aurelius
None of us have much time. And yet you act as if things were eternal - the way you fear and long for them. ... Before long, darkness. And whoever buries you mourned in their turn. -- Marcus Aurelius
Think often the connection of all things in the world and their mutual relations, they are arguably intertwined with each other and thus have for each other a mutual friendship, and that under the connection that leads him and the unity of matter -- Marcus Aurelius
As for life therefore, and death, honour and dishonour, labour and pleasure, riches and poverty, all these things happen unto men indeed, both good and bad, equally; but as things which of themselves are neither good nor bad; because of themselves, neither shameful nor praiseworthy. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let the god that is within you be the champion of the being you are. -- Marcus Aurelius
Is my understanding sufficient for this or not? If it is sufficient, I use it for the work as an instrument given by the universal nature. But if it is not sufficient, then either I retire from the work and give way to him who is able to do it better, -- Marcus Aurelius
Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same. -- Marcus Aurelius
Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone. -- Marcus Aurelius
Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee. -- Marcus Aurelius
Honor and revere the gods, treat human beings as they deserve, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood - and nothing else is under your control. -- Marcus Aurelius
Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil. -- Marcus Aurelius
For any particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? -- Marcus Aurelius
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own. -- Marcus Aurelius
Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise. -- Marcus Aurelius
In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors. -- Marcus Aurelius
The world is a living being - one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind. -- Marcus Aurelius
No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured. -- Marcus Aurelius
If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius
Things of themselves cannot touch the soul at all. They have no entry to the soul, and cannot turn or move it. The soul alone turns and moves itself, making all externals presented to it cohere with the judgements it thinks worthy of itself. -- Marcus Aurelius
The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who pays no attention to what his neighbor does, says or thinks, preferring to concentrate on making his own actions appropriate and justifiable, better uses his time. -- Marcus Aurelius
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius
My mind. What is it? What am I making of it? What am I using it for? Is it empty of thought? Isolated and torn loose from those around it? Melted into flesh and blended with it, so that it shares its urges? -- Marcus Aurelius
Kingship: to earn a bad reputation by good deeds. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not suppose you are hurt, and your complaint ceases; cease your complaint, and you are not hurt (iv. 7), -- Marcus Aurelius
And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
Pray look upon the plants and birds, the ants, spiders, and bees, and you will see them all exerting their nature, and busy in their station. Pray, shall not a man act like a man? -- Marcus Aurelius
That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before. -- Marcus Aurelius
Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too. -- Marcus Aurelius
The universe is flux, life is opinion. -- Marcus Aurelius
To stand up straight - not straightened -- Marcus Aurelius
Indeed, the application of the adjective "stoic" to a person who shows strength and courage in misfortune probably owes more to the aristocratic Roman value system than it does to Greek philosophers. Stoicism -- Marcus Aurelius
What else did you expect from helping someone out? Isn't it enough that you've done what your nature demands? You want a salary for it too? As if your eyes expected a reward for seeing, or your feet for walking. That's what they were made for. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is within our power not to make a judgement about something, and so not disturb our minds; for nothing in itself possesses the power to form our judgements. -- Marcus Aurelius
Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible. -- Marcus Aurelius
Adorn thyself with simplicity and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow God. The poet says that Law rules all. And it is enough to
remember that law rules all. -- Marcus Aurelius
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing. -- Marcus Aurelius
Adorn thyself with simplicity and modesty and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow -- Marcus Aurelius
Not to be offended with other men's liberty of speech, and to apply myself unto philosophy. -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who dreads death, dreads either an extinction of all sense, or dreads a different sort of sensation. If all sense is extinguished, there can be no sense of evil. If a different sort of sense is acquired, you become another sort of living creature; and don't cease to live. -- Marcus Aurelius
B.C.) - Stoicism stressed the search for inner peace and ethical certainty despite the apparent chaos of the external world by emulating in one's personal conduct the underlying orderliness and lawfulness of nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground. -- Marcus Aurelius
There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe. -- Marcus Aurelius
The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid. -- Marcus Aurelius
Think on this doctrine,-that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it. -- Marcus Aurelius
8. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you - inside or out. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is right that man should love those who have offended him. He will do so when he remembers that all men are his relations, and that it is through ignorance and involuntarily that they sin,
and then we all die so soon. -- Marcus Aurelius
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself. -- Marcus Aurelius
As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two. -- Marcus Aurelius
It was my tutor who dissuaded me from patronizing Green or Blue at the races, or Light or Heavy in the ring; -- Marcus Aurelius
Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point. -- Marcus Aurelius
Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after. -- Marcus Aurelius
Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you -- Marcus Aurelius
Live every day as if they last. -- Marcus Aurelius
In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object. -- Marcus Aurelius
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think. -- Marcus Aurelius
If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good. -- Marcus Aurelius
Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life - there, if one must speak out, the real man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of great relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are ONE. -- Marcus Aurelius
Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected. -- Marcus Aurelius
There is nothing more shameful than perfidious friendship. -- Marcus Aurelius
For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose. -- Marcus Aurelius
Think of the universal substance, of which thou has a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art -- Marcus Aurelius
Human society is a single organism, like an individual human body or a tree. But -- Marcus Aurelius
Anger cannot be dishonest. -- Marcus Aurelius
Striid andWthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm. -- Marcus Aurelius
Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg but my will, not even Zeus himself can overpower. -- Marcus Aurelius
When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. -- Marcus Aurelius
This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole ... -- Marcus Aurelius
To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief -- Marcus Aurelius
For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason. -- Marcus Aurelius
The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself. -- Marcus Aurelius
He does not write at all whose poems no man reads -- Marcus Aurelius
Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements. -- Marcus Aurelius
Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to the perfect principles of art. -- Marcus Aurelius
Choose not to be harmed - and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed - and you haven't been. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let thine occupations be few, saith the sage, if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life. -- Marcus Aurelius
The earth, saith the poet, doth often long after the rain. So is the glorious sky often as desirous to fall upon the earth, which argues a mutual kind of love between them. -- Marcus Aurelius
No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his
neighbour's heart. -- Marcus Aurelius
Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display. -- Marcus Aurelius
The student as boxer, not fencer. The fencer's weapon is picked up and put down again. The boxer's is part of him. All he has to do is clench his fist. -- Marcus Aurelius
Note that everything that happens, happens justly, and if you observe carefully, you will find it to be so, not only with respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to what is just, as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its value. -- Marcus Aurelius
What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts. -- Marcus Aurelius
The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
Pneuma is the power - the vital breath - that animates animals and humans. It is, in Dylan Thomas's phrase, "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower," and is present even in lifeless materials like stone or metal as the energy that holds the object together - the -- Marcus Aurelius
Failing to understand the workings of one's own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness. -- Marcus Aurelius
Every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another. -- Marcus Aurelius
Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature,
that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures
tranquility. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
he may not be profound, he is always sincere. -- Marcus Aurelius
We are the other of the other -- Marcus Aurelius
A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark. -- Marcus Aurelius
Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small -- Marcus Aurelius
Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
How unlucky I am that this should happen to me. But not at all. Perhaps, say how lucky I am that I am not broken by what has happened, and I am not afraid of what is about to happen. For the same blow might have stricken anyone, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation and complaint. -- Marcus Aurelius
Change your attitude to the things that bother you and you will be aware of them. -- Marcus Aurelius
People find pressure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place and better fortified than this, hath no man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that. -- Marcus Aurelius
Stop drifting. You're not going to re-read your Brief Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the commonplace books you saved for your old age. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can. -- Marcus Aurelius
Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills. -- Marcus Aurelius
what death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection resolves into their parts all the things which present themselves to the imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than an operation of nature; -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present - thoughtfully, justly. -- Marcus Aurelius
Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is in your own power to maintain the beauty of your soul, or to be a decent human being. -- Marcus Aurelius
And to have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful. -- Marcus Aurelius
Things themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it -- Marcus Aurelius
Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. -- Marcus Aurelius
He is so rich, he has no room to shit. -- Marcus Aurelius
You've given aid and they've received it. And yet, like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a Good Deed, to be repaid in kind. Why? -- Marcus Aurelius
Why dost thou not pray ... to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen? -- Marcus Aurelius
Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest. -- Marcus Aurelius
Occupy thyself with few things, says the philosopher, if thou wouldst be tranquil.- -- Marcus Aurelius
The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable . He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man: but he who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not let the future disturb you, for you will arrive there, if you arrive, with the same reason you now apply to the present. -- Marcus Aurelius
If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common weal? -- Marcus Aurelius
You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. -- Marcus Aurelius
There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men. -- Marcus Aurelius
The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works. -- Marcus Aurelius
You are but an impression, and not at all what you seem to be'. -- Marcus Aurelius
Leave the wrong done by another where the wrong arose. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission. -- Marcus Aurelius
A better wrestler. But not a better citizen, a better person, a better resource in tight places, a better forgiver of faults. -- Marcus Aurelius
Our thoughts is what our life make it -- Marcus Aurelius
As for literature, thefts cannot harm it, while the lapse of ages augments its value -- Marcus Aurelius
To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with a light and superficial knowledge, nor quickly to assent to things commonly spoken of: -- Marcus Aurelius
Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found? -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement. -- Marcus Aurelius
Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to. -- Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live. -- Marcus Aurelius
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. -- Marcus Aurelius
Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being. -- Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is not to be like that. -- Marcus Aurelius
Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others. -- Marcus Aurelius
The existence of evil does not harm the world. And an individual act of evil does not harm the victim. Only one person is harmed by it - and he can stop being harmed as soon as he decides to. -- Marcus Aurelius
Love the people with whom fate brings you together -- Marcus Aurelius
The pride which is proud of want of pride is the most intolerable of all. -- Marcus Aurelius
Both happiness and unhappiness depend on perception -- Marcus Aurelius
All things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle. -- Marcus Aurelius
Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear? -- Marcus Aurelius
To pursue the impossible is madness: but it is impossible for evil men not to do things of this sort. -- Marcus Aurelius
Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend ... or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are. -- Marcus Aurelius
The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite. -- Marcus Aurelius
Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just. -- Marcus Aurelius
What am I doing with my soul? Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so-called mind and what kind of soul you have now. A child's soul, an adolescent's, a woman's? A tyrant's soul? The soul of a predator - or its prey? -- Marcus Aurelius
Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil. -- Marcus Aurelius
If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons. -- Marcus Aurelius
Glory arrives too late when it comes only to one's ashes -- Marcus Aurelius
The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer. -- Marcus Aurelius
From my grandfather's father, I learned to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent. -- Marcus Aurelius
To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead - and to realize that no expense should be grudged for this purpose. -- Marcus Aurelius
From my great-grandfather: not to have attended schools for the public; to have had good teachers at home, and to realize that this is the sort of thing on which one should spend lavishly. -- Marcus Aurelius
The body of an actor can be either his best friend or his worst enemy. -- Marcus Aurelius
Don't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand ... Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present. -- Marcus Aurelius
The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor. -- Marcus Aurelius
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ... -- Marcus Aurelius
Love the art, poor as it may be, that you have learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has entrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making yourself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let not the general representation unto thyself of the wretchedness of this our mortal life, trouble thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
Never value the advantages derived from anything involving breach of faith, loss of self-respect, hatred, suspicion, or execration of others, insincerity, or the desire for something which has to be veiled and curtained. -- Marcus Aurelius
How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear. -- Marcus Aurelius
Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this. -- Marcus Aurelius
Once you have done a man a service, what more reward would you have? Is it not enough to have obeyed the laws of your own nature, without expecting to be paid for it? -- Marcus Aurelius
To breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things fade and quickly turn to myth. -- Marcus Aurelius
Never wilt your soul, never be just good, simple or unpolished. Manifest more then the body that surrounds yourself. -- Marcus Aurelius
Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds. -- Marcus Aurelius
Take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
How soon will time cover all things. -- Marcus Aurelius
The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing. -- Marcus Aurelius
Stick to what's in front of you - idea, action, utterance. -- Marcus Aurelius
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius
Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius
To be cheerful, and to stand in no need, either of other men's help or attendance, or of that rest and tranquillity, which thou must be beholding to others for. Rather like one that is straight of himself, or hath ever been straight, than one that hath been rectified. -- Marcus Aurelius
Either pain affects the body (which is the body's problem) or it affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?' -- Marcus Aurelius
Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore? -- Marcus Aurelius
One man is proud when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears ... Are these not robbers? -- Marcus Aurelius
30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books. "I have nothing to eat," says he, as he stands there half-naked, "but I subsist on the logos." And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too. -- Marcus Aurelius
How easy it is to repel and release every impression which is troublesome and immediately to be tranquil. -- Marcus Aurelius
Your life is an expression of all your thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius
Kindness is invincible. -- Marcus Aurelius
The whole contains nothing which is not or its advantage; and all natures indeed have this common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to generate anything harmful to itself. -- Marcus Aurelius
But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding. -- Marcus Aurelius
No thefts of free will reported."[ - Epictetus.] -- Marcus Aurelius
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear. -- Marcus Aurelius
Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust -- Marcus Aurelius
The nature of the All moved to make the universe. -- Marcus Aurelius
Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic. -- Marcus Aurelius
It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad? -- Marcus Aurelius
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought. -- Marcus Aurelius
To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. -- Marcus Aurelius
Bear in mind that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges, and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot. Or that everything was born to die. -- Marcus Aurelius
How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird or pig. -- Marcus Aurelius
Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time - even when hard at work. -- Marcus Aurelius
Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? -- Marcus Aurelius
That men of a certain type should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree would not yield its juice. In any case, remember that in a very little while both you and he will be dead, and your very names will quickly be forgotten. -- Marcus Aurelius
Poverty is the mother of crime. -- Marcus Aurelius
Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. -- Marcus Aurelius
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath. -- Marcus Aurelius
all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The -- Marcus Aurelius
The sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns, and nobody can lose what is not his. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do you have reason? I have. Why then do you not use it? For if reason does its own work, what else could you wish for? -- Marcus Aurelius
XV. Is any man so foolish as to fear change, to which all things that once were not owe their being? And -- Marcus Aurelius
All that comes to pass is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring, and the grape in summer. Of like fashion are sickness, death, calumny, intrigue, and all that gladdens or saddens the foolish. -- Marcus Aurelius
How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead. -- Marcus Aurelius
Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew. -- Marcus Aurelius
Keep thyself therefore, truly simple, good, sincere, grave, free from all ostentation, a lover of that which is just, religious, kind, tender-hearted, strong and vigorous to undergo anything that becomes thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. -- Marcus Aurelius
From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power. -- Marcus Aurelius
In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight. -- Marcus Aurelius
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it. -- Marcus Aurelius
Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
Spend your brief moment according to nature's law, and serenely greet the journey's end as an olive falls when it is ripe, blessing the branch that bare it, and giving thanks to the tree that gave it life. -- Marcus Aurelius
Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains ... But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree ... when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself. -- Marcus Aurelius
Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens- that is enough. Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power. Among -- Marcus Aurelius
To the best of my judgment, when I look at the human character I see no virtue placed there to counter justice. But I see one to counter pleasure: self-control. -- Marcus Aurelius
Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it. -- Marcus Aurelius
If something is difficult for you to accomplish, do not then think it impossible for any human being; rather, if it is humanly possible and corresponds to human nature, know that it is attainable by you as well. -- Marcus Aurelius
Death is a cessation from the impression of the senses, the tyranny of the passions, the errors of the mind, and the servitude of the body. -- Marcus Aurelius
To them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it. -- Marcus Aurelius
Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius
Practice even what seems impossible. The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice. 7. -- Marcus Aurelius
Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power: sincerity and dignity; industriousness; and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank; be temperate in manner and speech; carry yourself with authority. -- Marcus Aurelius
If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher. -- Marcus Aurelius
Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised. -- Marcus Aurelius
The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this reason. -- Marcus Aurelius
A Man's life is dyed the color of his imagination. -- Marcus Aurelius
The one thing worth living for is to keep one's soul pure. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more. -- Marcus Aurelius
They know not how many things are signified by the words stealing, sowing, buying, keeping quiet, seeing what ought to be done; for this is not effected by the eyes, but by another kind of vision. -- Marcus Aurelius
Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish. -- Marcus Aurelius
At day's first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that "I am rising for the work of man." -- Marcus Aurelius
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed. -- Marcus Aurelius
Why do we shrink from change? What can come into being save by change? -- Marcus Aurelius
Let no act be done without purpose. -- Marcus Aurelius
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nothing proceeds from nothingness, as also nothing passes away into non-existence. -- Marcus Aurelius
How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life. -- Marcus Aurelius
But cast away the thirst after books, that thou mayest not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from thy heart thankful to the gods. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things. -- Marcus Aurelius
God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose. -- Marcus Aurelius
Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not. -- Marcus Aurelius
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.
Marcus Aurelius -- Marcus Aurelius
Men exist for each other. Then either improve them, or put up with them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty. -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region. -- Marcus Aurelius
To enter others' minds and let them enter yours. -- Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is not to do as they do. -- Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. -- Marcus Aurelius
The best sort of revenue is not to be like him who did the injury. -- Marcus Aurelius
The offender needs pity, not wrath; those who must needs be corrected, should be treated with tact and gentleness; and one must be always ready to learn better. 'The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.' -- Marcus Aurelius
It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already. -- Marcus Aurelius
When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man's happiness,-to do the things proper to man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius
It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none. -- Marcus Aurelius
Does a man offend your pride? Remember he will be dead soon, as will you. -- Marcus Aurelius
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Get rid of the judgement ... get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself. -- Marcus Aurelius
One universe made up all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth. -- Marcus Aurelius
Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised. -- Marcus Aurelius
The man who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know where he lives. -- Marcus Aurelius
73. When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return? -- Marcus Aurelius
strength and honor -- Marcus Aurelius
Give full attention and devotion to each act. -- Marcus Aurelius
Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad. -- Marcus Aurelius
All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. -- Marcus Aurelius
Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind. Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what's affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to. -- Marcus Aurelius
That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within. -- Marcus Aurelius
Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life. -- Marcus Aurelius
Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one. -- Marcus Aurelius
The true joy of humankind is in doing that which is most proper to our nature; and the first property of people is to be kindly affected towards them that are of one kind with ourselves. -- Marcus Aurelius
People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. -- Marcus Aurelius
Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and temperance be extinguished before thy death? -- Marcus Aurelius
Death is a cessation of the impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the strings that move the appetites, and of the discursive movements of the thoughts, and of the service to the flesh. -- Marcus Aurelius
In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination ... -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together they compose the world. One world, made up of all things. One divinity, present in them all. -- Marcus Aurelius
The main thing we were made for is to work with others. -- Marcus Aurelius
Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish. -- Marcus Aurelius
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. -- Marcus Aurelius
Men are born for each other's sake, so either teach people or endure them -- Marcus Aurelius
Never value anything as profitable that compels you to break your promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains: -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light or look the world in the face. -- Marcus Aurelius
obsequious courting of the mob -- Marcus Aurelius
To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one. -- Marcus Aurelius
Small too even the longest fame thereafter, which is itself subject to a succession of little men who quickly die, and have no knowledge of themselves, let alone of those long dead. -- Marcus Aurelius
An angry look on the face is wholly against nature. If it be assumed frequently, beauty begins to perish, and in the end is quenched beyond rekindling. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything that happens, happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so. -- Marcus Aurelius
Moreover, to endure labour; nor to need many things; when I have anything to do, to do it myself rather than by others; not to meddle with many businesses; and not easily to admit of any slander. -- Marcus Aurelius
If it's time for you to go, leave willingly - as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor. -- Marcus Aurelius
Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Your task is to stand straight; not to be held straight. -- Marcus Aurelius
When the longest- and shortest-lived of us dies their loss is precisely equal. For the sole thing of which any of us can be deprived is the present, since this is all we own, and nobody can lose what is not theirs. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thereby gain much leisure, and save much trouble, and therefore at every action a man must privately by way of admonition suggest unto himself, What? may not this that now I go about, -- Marcus Aurelius
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such -- Marcus Aurelius
Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished. -- Marcus Aurelius
Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everywhere and continually it is in your power to be reverently content with your present circumstance, to behave to men who are present with you according to right and to handle skillfully the present impression, that nothing you have not mastered may cross the threshold of the mind. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be. -- Marcus Aurelius
Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith. -- Marcus Aurelius
If some one tells you that so and so speaks ill of you, do not defend yourself against what he says, but answer, 'He did not know my other faults, or he would not have mentioned these alone.' It -- Marcus Aurelius
Then consider the Middle (and later the New) Comedy and what it aimed at - gradually degenerating into mere realism and empty technique. -- Marcus Aurelius
Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal nature wills me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me to do. -- Marcus Aurelius
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves. -- Marcus Aurelius
I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not look around to discover other people's ruling principles, but look straight to this, to what nature leads you, both the universal nature through which things happen to you, and your own nature through the acts which must be done by you. -- Marcus Aurelius
Enter their minds, and you'll find the judges you're so afraid of - and how judiciously they judge themselves. -- Marcus Aurelius
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, "delving into the things that lie beneath" and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them, never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely. To -- Marcus Aurelius
If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I think the truth , which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence and self-delusion and ignorance which does harm. -- Marcus Aurelius
Every instant of time ... is a pinprick of eternity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle. -- Marcus Aurelius
If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, 'I awake to do the work of a man. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise. -- Marcus Aurelius
Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within. -- Marcus Aurelius
A very ridiculous thing it is, that any man should dispense with vice and wickedness in himself, which is in his power to restrain; and should go about to suppress it in others, which is altogether impossible. -- Marcus Aurelius
Reverence the sovereign power over things in the Universe; this is what uses all and marshals all. In like manner, too, reverence the sovereign power in yourself; and this is of one kind with that. For in you also this is what uses the rest, and your manner of living is governed by this. -- Marcus Aurelius
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize? -- Marcus Aurelius
No difference between here and there: the city that you live in is the world. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments. -- Marcus Aurelius
That that life which any the longest liver, or the shortest liver parts with, is for length and duration the very same, for that only which is present, is that, which either of them can lose, as being that only which they have; for that which he hath not, no man can truly be said to lose. -- Marcus Aurelius
Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason. -- Marcus Aurelius
For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things change, and you yourself are constantly wasting away. So also is the universe. -- Marcus Aurelius
Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who has seen the present has seen everything, that which happened in the most distant past and that which will happen in the future. -- Marcus Aurelius
The world is mere change, and this life, opinion. -- Marcus Aurelius
Consider how many do not even know your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how those who now praise you will presently blame you. -- Marcus Aurelius
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony. -- Marcus Aurelius
Sixth, consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. -- Marcus Aurelius
If a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others. -- Marcus Aurelius
Because other people are fools, must you be so too? -- Marcus Aurelius
Casting therefore all other things aside, keep thyself to these few, and remember withal that no man properly can be said to live more than that which is now present, which is but a moment of time. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let nothing be done rashly, and at random, but all things according to the most exact and perfect rules of art. -- Marcus Aurelius
In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them. -- Marcus Aurelius
Submit to the fate of your own free will. -- Marcus Aurelius
You should always look on human life as short and cheap. Yesterday sperm: tomorrow a mummy or ashes. -- Marcus Aurelius
Live as though today is your last day. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, o Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things are in the act of change; thou thyself in ceaseless transformation and partial decay, and the whole universe with thee. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another. -- Marcus Aurelius
It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig. -- Marcus Aurelius
There is a kind of river of things passing into being and Time is a violent torrent. For no sooner is each seen, than it has been carried away, and another is being carried by, and that, too, will be carried away. -- Marcus Aurelius
And those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things - they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. -- Marcus Aurelius
All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried. -- Marcus Aurelius
The earth loveth the shower," and "the holy aether knoweth what love is." The Universe, too, loves to create whatsoever is destined to be made. -- Marcus Aurelius
For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of your own habitation but a minute corner in it. ( ... ) Remember then to withdraw into the little field of self. Above all, never struggle or strain; but be master of yourself. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thanks to the gods I didn't spend much time while growing up with my grandfather's mistress and preserved the flower of my youth, waiting for the proper time to demonstrate my virility. -- Marcus Aurelius
Finally, therefore, remember your retreat into this little domain which is yourself, and above all be not disturbed nor on the rack, but be free and look at things as a man, a human being, a citizen, a creature that must die. -- Marcus Aurelius
Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it
turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal. -- Marcus Aurelius
Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he
loseth. -- Marcus Aurelius
Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good, when by it thou art hindered from some other better work. -- Marcus Aurelius
I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects. -- Marcus Aurelius
There's nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility -- Marcus Aurelius
Do unsavory armpits and bad breath make you angry? -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything of the body is a river. Everything of the soul is dream and vapour. Life is war and the abode of a stranger. The only fame after death is oblivion. -- Marcus Aurelius
And indeed he who pursues pleasure as good, and avoids pain as evil, is guilty of impiety. -- Marcus Aurelius
Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able - be good. 18. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all, and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life. -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. -- Marcus Aurelius
If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity? -- Marcus Aurelius
All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging. -- Marcus Aurelius
And consider this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time. Think -- Marcus Aurelius
Withdraw to the untroubled quietude deep within the soul, and refresh yourself. -- Marcus Aurelius
Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass. -- Marcus Aurelius
How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it. -- Marcus Aurelius
In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious. -- Marcus Aurelius
Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor -- Marcus Aurelius
In no great while you will be no one and nowhere, and nothing that you now behold will be in existence, nor will anyone now alive. For it is in the nature of all things to change and alter and perish, so that others may arise in their turn. -- Marcus Aurelius
Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should. And -- Marcus Aurelius
The universe is transformation: life is opinion. -- Marcus Aurelius
Where a man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;- well then, he can also live well in a palace. -- Marcus Aurelius
We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate. -- Marcus Aurelius
Objective judgment ... Unselfish action ... Willing acceptance ... of all external events. -- Marcus Aurelius
all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. -- Marcus Aurelius
When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind. -- Marcus Aurelius
Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. -- Marcus Aurelius
Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more suitable? In -- Marcus Aurelius
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look. -- Marcus Aurelius
This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? -- Marcus Aurelius
The gods sustain and guide all their works. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let goodness go with the doing. -- Marcus Aurelius
If you separate from ... everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future ... and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday. -- Marcus Aurelius
What we do in life ripples in eternity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Remember, however, that you are formed by nature to bear everything whose tolerability depends on your own opinion to make it so, by thinking that it is in your interest or duty to do so. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look at the past - empire succeeding empire - and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new? -- Marcus Aurelius
Fire feeds on obstacles -- Marcus Aurelius
And so accept everything that happens, even if it is disagreeable, because it leads to this, to the health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus -- Marcus Aurelius
Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason. -- Marcus Aurelius
And he who pursues pleasure will not abstain from injustice, and this is plainly impiety. -- Marcus Aurelius
A man is a little soul carrying around a courpse. -- Marcus Aurelius
Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility. -- Marcus Aurelius
When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance revert at once to yourself and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it. -- Marcus Aurelius
Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one. -- Marcus Aurelius
The Stoic makes no differentiation between a small act of kindness by a simple person and a great act of virtue from a learned sage. Virtue is virtue, and in both cases the result is happiness for the one who is virtuous. -- Marcus Aurelius
The man of ambition thinks to find his good in the operations of others; the man of pleasure in his own sensations; but the man of understanding in his own actions. -- Marcus Aurelius
Dig within. There lies the wellspring of good. -- Marcus Aurelius
When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it. -- Marcus Aurelius
The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues. -- Marcus Aurelius
As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first. -- Marcus Aurelius
Not the "not" but the "not yet. -- Marcus Aurelius
Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds. -- Marcus Aurelius
Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past. -- Marcus Aurelius
No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothings can happen to you that is not required by Nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
You can live here as you expect to live there. -- Marcus Aurelius
Take the shortest route. The one that nature planned - to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculations and pretension. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life. -- Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. -- Marcus Aurelius
That to expect bad people not to injure others is crazy. It's to ask the impossible. And to let them behave like that to other people but expect them to exempt you is arrogant
the act of a tyrant. -- Marcus Aurelius
I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass. -- Marcus Aurelius
I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself. -- Marcus Aurelius
To undertake nothing: i. at random or without a purpose; ii. for any reason but the common good. -- Marcus Aurelius
In a little while you will have forgotten everything; in a little while everything will have forgotten you. -- Marcus Aurelius
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy. -- Marcus Aurelius
Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. -- Marcus Aurelius
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful - more free of interruptions - than your own soul. Especially -- Marcus Aurelius
The universe is in change, life is an opinion. -- Marcus Aurelius
And yet, after all, what is posthumous fame? Altogether vanity. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What's surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, "I have a purpose," and the other goods as well. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let every action aim solely at the common good. -- Marcus Aurelius
When pain is unbearable it destroys us; when it does not it is bearable. -- Marcus Aurelius
Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day. -- Marcus Aurelius
Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity ... -- Marcus Aurelius
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. -- Marcus Aurelius
A little wisp of soul carrying a corpse." - Epictetus. -- Marcus Aurelius
He who loves fame considers another man's activity to be his own good; and he who loves pleasure, his own sensations; but he who has understanding, considers his own acts to be his own good. It -- Marcus Aurelius
Does the emerald lose its beauty for lack of admiration? -- Marcus Aurelius
Never shirk the proper dispatch of your duty, no matter if you are freezing or hot, groggy or well-rested, vilified or praised, not even if dying or pressed by other demands. -- Marcus Aurelius
Manage all your actions, words, and thoughts accordingly, since you may at any moment quit life. -- Marcus Aurelius
Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good. -- Marcus Aurelius
Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought. -- Marcus Aurelius
No form of nature is inferior to art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms. - Variant: There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things. -- Marcus Aurelius
Live every day as if thy last. -- Marcus Aurelius
The infallible man does not exist. -- Marcus Aurelius
The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct. -- Marcus Aurelius
Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? -- Marcus Aurelius
( ... ) you have grown beyond supposing such actions to be either good or bad, and therefore it will be so much the easier to be tolerant of another's blindness. -- Marcus Aurelius
I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for? -- Marcus Aurelius
Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present
thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined. -- Marcus Aurelius
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too. -- Marcus Aurelius
Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature. -- Marcus Aurelius
It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle. -- Marcus Aurelius
Truth and ceremony are two things. -- Marcus Aurelius
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. -- Marcus Aurelius
Where a man can live, he can also live well. -- Marcus Aurelius
The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it. -- Marcus Aurelius
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 opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. -- Marcus Aurelius
