Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

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.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

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.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

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?

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.

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.

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

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

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.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

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.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.

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