Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

But fortunate means that a man has assigned to himself a good fortune: and a good fortune is good disposition of the soul, good emotions, good actions.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.

48. When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one's energy, that one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we're practically showered with them. It's good to keep this in mind.

Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.

De Frontón: haber observado a qué grado de envidia, de disimulo y duplicidad llegaron los tiranos, y cómo, casi siempre, esas gentes que llamamos los «patricios» son incapaces de verdadero afecto para los demás.

Everything you're trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you'd only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you'd only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence

a good fortune is good disposition of the soul, good emotions and good actions.

Whatever you encounter in life, consider its origin, what it's made of, what it's changing into, what it will be like after it's changed, and that it will come to no harm as a result of changing.

Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their 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.

Whom a man might compare to one of those half-eaten wretches, matched in the amphitheatre with wild beasts; who as full as they are all the body over with wounds and blood, desire for a great favour, that they may be reserved till the next day

Similarly, man is born for deeds of kindness; and when he has done a kindly action, or otherwise served the common welfare, he has done what he was made for, and has received his quittance.

a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

Si te afliges por alguna causa externa, no es ella lo que te importuna, sino el juicio que tú haces de ella. Y borrar ese juicio, de ti depende. Pero si te aflige algo que radica en tu disposición, ¿Quién te impide rectificar tu criterio?

There's only one crop to be reaped from your time on earth, and that is a reverential disposition and socially useful actions.

undeviating firmness in giving to every man according to his deserts;

One is a careful distinction between things which are in our power and things which are not. Desire and dislike, opinion and affection, are within the power of the will; whereas health, wealth, honour, and other such are generally not so.

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. Thou

Meus caros amigos, os deixo sem revolta nem drama, mas antes de bom grado e tranquilo, já que é esta a vontade da natureza".

The Stoics aspired to the repression of all emotion, and the Epicureans to freedom from all disturbance; yet in the upshot the one has become a synonym of stubborn endurance, the other for unbridled licence.

22. No te dejes arrastrar por el torbellino de las pasiones; antes bien, a todo ímpetu del instinto, ofrece lo que de justicia le toca; ante toda aprensión de la fantasía, conserva la facultad de pensar.

thou must use thyself to think only of such things, of which if a man upon a sudden should ask thee, what it is that thou art now thinking, thou mayest answer This, and That, freely and boldly, that so by thy thoughts it may presently appear that in all thee is sincere, and peaceable

60. An arrow has one motion and the mind another. Even when pausing, even when weighing conclusions, the mind is moving forward, toward its goal. 61. To enter others' minds and let them enter yours.

13. You have a mind? —Yes. Well, why not use it? Isn't that all you want—for it to do its job?

Either we should not pray at all, or thus absolutely and freely; and not every one for himself in particular alone.