Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, is this necessary…

Nature willed the creation of the world. Either all that exists follows logically or even those things to which the world's intelligence most directs its will are completely random. A source of serenity in more situations than one.

Enquanto não observa o que se passa na mente dos demais, raramente se viu um homem infeliz; aquele, porém, que não observa o que se passa em sua própria mente, será necessariamente infeliz.

Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself? 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.

Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion.

Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.

How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them;

The noblest kind retribution is to become not like your enemy

he is poor, who has need of another, and has not from himself all things that are useful for life.

16. To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.

all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The

always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

Dost thou grieve that thou dost weigh but so many pounds, and not three hundred rather? Just as much reason hast thou to grieve that thou must live but so many years, and not longer. For as for bulk and substance thou dost content thyself with that proportion of it that is allotted unto thee, so shouldst thou for time.

Two characteristics shared by gods and men (and every rational creature): i. Not to let others hold you back. ii. To locate goodness in thinking and doing the right thing, and to limit your desires to that. 35.

nor to showing myself off as a man who practises much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display

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

42. I have no right to do myself an injury. Have I ever injured anyone else if I could avoid it?

The person who lives shortest owns the exact same amount of life as the one who lives longest. For the present is all we have and all we can lose. When we die, we don't "lose" the past or future—we never owned them.

Some things are hurrying into existence, and other are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence, part is already extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages.

How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it?

nunca se sabe ao certo quando os homens incorrem em erro, pois muitas das suas ações, que nos parecem perversas a primeira vista, são feitas com boas intenções, ou ao menos sem más intenções. É necessário conhecer inúmeros pormenores e circunstâncias antes de poder julgar com alguma segurança a conduta alheia.

FROM MY GRANDFATHER VERUS I LEARNED GOOD MORALS AND THE government of my temper.

Whatsoever he said, all men believed him that as he spake, so he thought, and whatsoever he did, that he did it with a good intent.