Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

Like a horse after running a race, or a bee after making honey, a good person doesn't stop and look around for applause or rewards. They go on to produce another good deed, as a vine produces more grapes in season.

Work: Not to rouse pity, not to win sympathy or admiration. Only this: Activity.

Con la afectación del léxico no trates de decorar tu pensamiento.

Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Affect not to set out your thoughts with curious neat language. Be neither a great talker, nor a great undertaker; be one who for his word or actions needs neither an oath, nor any man to be a witness.

51. Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.

Fight to be the person philosophy tried to make you. Revere the

That I had the kind of brother I did. One whose character challenged me to improve my own. One whose love and affection enriched my life.

to grumble at anything that happens is a rebellion against Nature, in some part of which are bound up the natures of all other things.

It's unfortunate that this has happened. No. It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone.

The art of true living in this world is more like a wrestler's, than a dancer's practice. For in this they both agree, to teach a man whatsoever falls upon him, that he may be ready for it, and that nothing may cast him down.

What stands in the way becomes the way

He would have claimed to be, at best, a diligent student and a very imperfect practitioner of a philosophy developed by others.

Living is more like wrestling than dancing: you have to stay on your feet, ready and unruffled, while blows are being rained down on you, sometimes from unexpected quarters.

Then hath a man attained to the estate of perfection in his life and conversation, when he so spends every day, as if it were his last day: never hot and vehement in his affections, nor yet so cold and stupid as one that had no sense; and free from all manner of dissimulation.

tanto el que goza de un tiempo más largo como el que ha de morir rápidamente deja atrás lo mismo, porque sólo es el presente de lo que va a verse privado, si es eso lo único que tiene y si uno no deja atrás lo que no tiene.

Of the life of man the duration is but a point, its substance streaming away, its perception dim, the fabric of the entire body prone to decay, and the soul a vortex, and fortune incalculable, and fame uncertain. In a word all the things of the body are as a river, and the things of the soul as a dream and a vapour; and life is a warfare and a pilgrim's sojourn, and fame after death is only forgetfulness.

but he that sins through lust, being overcome by pleasure, doth in his very sin bewray a more impotent, and unmanlike disposition.

No consumas la parte de la vida que te resta en hacer conjeturas sobre otras personas, de no ser que tu objetivo apunte a un bien común; porque ciertamente te privas de otra tarea; a saber, al imaginar qué hace fulano y por qué, y qué piensa y qué trama y tantas cosas semejantes que provocan tu aturdimiento, te apartas de la observación de tu guía interior.

Su visión del hombre es pesimista, pues considera que sus pasiones son el factor principal de la corrupción del mundo, por lo que aconseja perseguir tan sólo aquellos fines que dependan de uno mismo.

Qué es, pues, lo único que puede guiarnos en este mundo? Una sola y única cosa: la filosofía.

Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before, another falls after; but it makes no difference.

Suppose someone despises me. That's their concern, not mine. My concern is to live in harmony with nature and reason, so that my actions won't be worthy of contempt.