Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

A man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.

Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don't you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like "can't"?

Vanity is the greatest seducer of reason: when you are most convinced your work is important, that is when you are most under its spell.

that the offences which are committed through desire are more blameable than those which are committed through anger.

So there are two reasons to embrace what happens. One is that it's happening to you. It was prescribed for you, and it pertains to you. The thread was spun long ago, by the oldest cause of all. The other reason is that what happens to an individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world—of its well-being, its fulfillment, of its very existence, even.

Accept humbly: let go easily.

si con la rectitud debida obran de esa forma, no es razón que nos indignemos contra ellos; si no obran rectamente, es evidente que lo hacen sin libertad y por su ignorancia. Pues toda alma sólo de mal grado se priva tanto de la verdad como del conocimiento con que debe conducirse con cada uno según su valor. Por eso, llevan con impaciencia el oírse llamar injustos, ingratos, avaros, y, en una palabra, propensos a faltar contra su prójimo.

Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you. —Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine.

and to foresee things a long way off

El arte de vivir es más parecido al de la lucha que al de la danza en la medida que, ante lo que le cae a uno de improviso, hay que mantenerse preparado y sin caerse.

cuando te indignares sin medida, recuerda que la vida humana es infinitamente breve y que dentro de poco estaremos todos tendidos en el lecho fúnebre.

10. THE LITERARY CRITIC ALEXANDER Not to be constantly correcting people, and in particular not to jump on them whenever they make an error of usage or a grammatical mistake or mispronounce something, but just answer their question or add another example, or debate the issue itself (not their phrasing), or make some other contribution to the discussion—and insert the right expression, unobtrusively.

The universe, then, is God, of whom the popular gods are manifestations; while legends and myths are allegorical. The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling principle makes all things work together for good, but for the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature.

thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption.

let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good.

The rational commanding part, as it alone can stir up and turn itself; so it maketh both itself to be, and everything that happeneth, to appear unto itself, as it will itself.

It is high time for thee, to understand that there is somewhat in thee, better and more divine than either thy passions, or thy sensual appetites and affections. What is now the object of my mind, is it fear, or suspicion, or lust, or any such thing? To do nothing rashly without some certain end; let that be thy first care.

No reniegues, ni renuncies, ni te impacientes, si no se materializa la ejecución de cada acción según criterios rectos; por el contrario, aunque te quedes fuera de combate, vuelve a él con insistencia, conténtate si la mayor parte de tus acciones están por encima de lo humano y desea el combate al que vuelves. No

20. In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us—like sun, wind, animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do only what the logos of authority and law directs, with the good of human beings in mind; (ii) to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. But your conversion should always rest on a conviction that it's right, or benefits others—nothing else. Not because it's more appealing or more popular.

When it's hard to get out of bed in the morning, remind yourself: I am rising to resume my life's work. How can I be unhappy when I have another opportunity to do what I was born to do?

When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, To-morrow perchance thou wilt die.- But those are words of bad omen.- No word is a word of bad omen, said Epictetus, which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped.

Marcus sought by-laws to protect the weak, to make the lot of the slaves less hard, to stand in place of father to the fatherless.

For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced to ashes; and be quiet at last.