Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Tempat paling aman bagi manusia adalah pikirannya sendiri

Tak ada seorang pun yang bisa menghalangi keinginanmu untuk hidup selaras dengan kodratmu: peristiwa yang terjadi padamu tidak ada yang bertentangan dengan prinsip dari kodrat alam semesta

Have you reason? I have. Why then do you not use it? When it performs its proper office what more do you require?

Jangan bertingkah seolah-olah kau akan hidup hingga sepuluh ribu tahun. Kematian ada di dekatmu. Selama kau masih diberkahi hidup, selagi kau masih punya kemampuan, jadilah orang yang baik.

You could be good today. But instead, you choose tomorrow.

Firstly, fret not thyself, for all things are as the Nature of the Universe would have them, and within a little thou shalt be non-existent, and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus. Secondly, look stead fastly at the thing, and see it as it is and, remembering withal that thou must be a good man, and what the Nature of man calls for, do this without swerving, and speak as seemeth to thee most just, only be it graciously, modestly, and without feigning.

Ia yang takut akan kematian, merasa takut mengalami kehilangan sensasi atau jenis sensasi lain yang berbeda. Namun, jika kau tidak lagi mengalami sensasi, maka kau tidak akan merasa sakit. Dan jika kau ingin mendapatkan sensasi yang berbeda maka kau akan menjadi makhluk yang berbeda dan kau tidak akan berhenti hidup.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it

It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you - inside or out

Dread of death is a dread of non-sensation or new sensation. But either thou wilt feel no sensation, and so no sensation of any evil; or a different kind of sensation will be thine, and so the life of a different creature, but still a life.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in a way becomes the way.

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own

Efface imagination! Cease to be pulled as a puppet by thy passions. Isolate the present. Recognize what befalls either, thee or another. Dissect and analyze all that comes under thy ken into the Causal and the Material. Meditate on thy last hour. Let the wrong thy neighbour does thee rest with him that did the wrong;

Repentance is a sort of self-reproach at some useful thing passed by; but the good must needs be a useful thing, and ever to be cultivated by the true good man; but the true good man would never regret having passed a pleasure by. Pleasure therefore is neither a useful thing nor a good.

How beautifully Plato put it. Whenever you want to talk about people, it's best to take a bird's-eye view and see everything all at once—of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets—all blended together and arranged in a pairing of opposites.

Call to mind how long you deffer these things, and how many times you have received from the Gods grace of the appointed day and you do not use it. Yet now, if never before, you should realize what Universe you are a part of, and as an emanation from what Controller of that Universe you subsist; and that a limit has been set to your time, which if you do not use it to let daylight into your soul, it will be gone and never again shall the chance be yours.

Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.

Not easily is a man found to be unhappy by reason of his not regarding what is going on in another man's soul; but those who do not attend closely to the motions of their own souls must inevitably be unhappy.

When someone wrongs you, ask yourself: What made him do it? Once you understand his concept of good and evil, you'll feel sorry for him and cease to either be amazed or angry. If his concept is similar to yours, then you will be bound to forgive him since you would have acted as he did in similar circumstances. But if you do not share his ideas of good and evil, then you should find it even easier to overlook the wrongs of someone who is confused and in a moral muddle.

Mihin tahansa kyllästyisinkin, niin aina pysyn onnellisena, sillä onnellinen on se, joka pystyy luomaan itselleen onnellisen kohtalon. Onnellinen kohtalo taas on hyvä mieliala, hyvät taipumukset, hyvät teot.

Do not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature. For just as we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life, and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence, so also do we have death. A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully, but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes.

Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and always carried past us, and another follows and is gone.

He was not easily moved and tossed up and down, but loved to be constant

Jos jokin tuntuu sinusta vaikealta, niin älä ajattele, että ihminen ei voi sitä kestää. Jos sen sijaan jokin on mahdollista ihmisen suorittaa, niin arvele voivasi itsekin siitä selviytyä.