Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

37. I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

One who for his word or actions neither needs an oath, nor any man to be a witness.

And these your professed politicians, the only true practical philosophers of the world, (as they think of themselves) so full of affected gravity, or such professed lovers of virtue and honesty, what wretches be they in very deed; how vile and contemptible in themselves?

22. Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.

Be cheerful also, and seek not external help nor the tranquillity which others give. A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens- that is enough. Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power. Among

From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.

One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays thus: How shall I be released from this? Pray thou: How shall I not desire to be released? Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.

The Art of Living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen - and is not apt to fall.

To change your experience, change your opinion. Stop telling yourself that you're a victim and the pain goes away. What truly hurts you is what makes you a worse person. Don't say you've been harmed if your reason and character are untouched. And no one can muddy your reason and mar your character but yourself.

When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep on going back to it.

Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realising: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love - something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid. (6.13)

As they that long after figs in winter when they cannot be had; so are they that long after children, before they be granted them.

To investigate and analyze, with understanding and logic, the principles we ought to live by.

esta adversidad no es un infortunio, mas soportarlo noblemente es una suerte.                               50.

8. The mind is that which is roused and directed by itself. It makes of itself what it chooses. It makes what it chooses of its own experience.

selfishness; both of them will do you harm. When you start to lose your temper, remember: There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being—and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners.

Be concerned only that your own thoughts, words, and actions are just and generous. In the race of life, stay in your own lane and focus on the finish line; don't gawk at the missteps of others.

not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress

consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.

And moreover, to fear pain is to fear something that's bound to happen, the world being what it is—and that again is blasphemy.

Chief among these are inappropriate value judgments: the designation as "good" or "evil" of things that in fact are neither good nor evil.

Beautiful things are beautiful in themselves. They are not beautiful because they are admired. Praise adds nothing to beauty, and scorn can't detract from it. Just think of the things that are considered beautiful by the vulgar.

The time of a man's life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption.