Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Don't be irritated at people's smell or bad breath. What's the point? With that mouth, with those armpits, they're going to produce that odor. —But they have a brain! Can't they figure it out? Can't they recognize the problem? So you have a brain as well. Good for you. Then use your logic to awaken his. Show him. Make him realize it. If he'll listen, then you'll have solved the problem. Without anger.

To grieve or be angry about or fear what happens to you is to be a fugitive from the law of nature.

Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.

I am composed of the formal and the material; and neither of them will perish into non-existence, as neither of them came into existence out of non-existence. Every part of me then will be reduced by change into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another part of the universe, and so on for ever.

This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

All is change. You yourself are continuously changing and being destroyed bit by bit. So is the whole universe.

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?

Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.

Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine.

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?

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.

Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.

Constantly think of the universe as one living creature, embracing one being and soul; how all is absorbed into the one consciousness of this living creature; how it compasses all things with a single purpose, and how all things work together to cause all that comes to pass, and their wonderful web and texture.

A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all – that is myself.

Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy season brings, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.

You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite.

Self reliance, always. And cheerfulness.

It's unfortunate that this has happened. No. It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it.

Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. But make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. 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.

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.

Remember how long you have procrastinated, and how consistently you have failed to put to good use you suspended sentence from the gods. It is about time you realized the nature of the universe (of which you are part) and of the pwoer that rules it (to which your art owes its existence). 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. (II.4)

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

Asia and Europe are corners in the Universe; every sea, a drop in the Universe; Mount Athos, a clod of earth in the Universe; every instant of time, a pin-prick of eternity. All things are petty, easily changed, vanishing away. All things come from that other world, starting from that common governing principle, or else are secondary consequences of it.