Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.

Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.

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.

Confine yourself to the present.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been.

Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? ... It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.

Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world? neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.

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.

When you arise in the moring, think of what a precious privelege it is to be alive-- to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.

Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they're misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard?

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

Life is opinion.

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.