Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

He that lives alone lives in danger; society avoids many dangers.

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

The universe is a single life comprising one substance and one soul.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

It is a shame for the soul to be first to give way in this life, when thy body does not give way.

Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present - thoughtfully, justly.

Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

What we do now echoes in eternity.

Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.