Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Remember this, - that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life

Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

To be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Your life is what your thoughts make it.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing. The main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unforeseen attack.

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding.

ìNever esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.

What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.

Failing to understand the workings of one's own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.

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.

Do not think that what is hard for thee to master is impossible for man; but if a thing is possible and proper to man, deem it attainable by thee.

Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.

Not even the vicissitudes of fortune are contrary to nature or to the providential ordering of the universe. It all flows from the gods, who determine what is needed for the welfare of the whole universe, of which you are a part.

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.