Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.

September 17, 2019 0 Minutes How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.

if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

It's the nature of the universe—all things must change, including you. Embrace it.

When he speaks of death as a necessary change, and points out that nothing useful and profitable can be brought about without change

If your speaking skills need work, by all means work on them. But it's better to be honest and straightforward than mere witty and clever.

Disgraceful: that the mind should control the face, should be able to shape and mold it as it pleases, but not shape and mold itself.

If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.

Sayest thou unto that rational part, Thou art dead; corruption hath taken hold on thee? Doth it then also void excrements? Doth it like either oxen, or sheep, graze or feed; that it also should be mortal, as well as the body?

All is as thinking makes it so. Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

When one sort of person does a good deed, they mark it down as a favor to be repaid. Another sort of person doesn't seek a reward, but they take satisfaction in knowing that they've acted generously. A third sort of person doesn't even know what they've done; they bear good deeds as a vine bears grapes—naturally, without thinking about it.

what death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection resolves into their parts all the things which present themselves to the imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than an operation of nature;

Ogni volta che vedi uno compiere un'azione, se ti è possibile, prendi l'abitudine di chiederti: «A che mira costui facendo questo?». E comincia proprio da te, esaminando per primo te stesso.

He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only who does a certain thing.

And how man grasps God, with what part of himself he does so, and how that part is conditioned when he does.

All things are linked and knitted together, and the knot is sacred, neither is there anything in the world, that is not kind and natural in regard of any other thing, or, that hath not some kind of reference and natural correspondence with whatsoever is in the world besides.

Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself.

15. No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, "No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.

3. People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.

Look within; within is the fountain of all good. Such a fountain, where springing waters can never fail, so thou dig still deeper and deeper.

So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of the things that happen to us. Now you anticipate the child's emergence from its mother's womb; that's how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment.

26. You've seen that. Now look at this. Don't be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself. Someone has done wrong … to himself. Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly. Unrestrained moderation.