Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike your enemy.

It isn't manly to be enraged. Rather gentleness and civility are more human, therefrom more manly.

I do what is mine to do, the rest does not disturb me.

12. From Alexander the Platonist, not to say to anyone often or without necessity, nor write in a letter, I am too busy, nor in this fashion constantly plead urgent affairs as an excuse for evading the obligations entailed upon us by our relations towards those around us.

He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose ends.

It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse

Die Aufgabe des Lebens besteht nicht darin, auf der Seite einer Mehrzahl zu stehen, sondern dem inneren Gesetz gemäß zu leben.

Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill… I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together

How easy it is to drive away or obliterate from one's mind every impression which is troublesome or alien, and then to be immediately in perfect calm. p36

And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

I'm going to be meeting with people today who talk too much – people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I can't imagine a world without such people.

Ons leven is slechts wat onze gedachten ervan maken.

From Alexander the grammarian, not to be captious; nor in a carping spirit find fault with those who import into their conversation any expression which is barbarous or ungrammatical or mispronounced, but tactfully to bring in the very expression, that ought to have been used, by way of answer, or as it were in joint support of the assertion, or as a joint consideration of the thing itself and not of the language, or by some such graceful reminder.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage. And suppose you can't do that either. Then where does blaming people get you?

self-reliance and an unequivocal determination not to leave anything to chance;

You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.

For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul

Thou art a poor soul, saddled with a corpse," said Epictetus.

Para que guarde la muerte en actitud placida, no viendo en ella otra cosa que la disolución de los elementos de que consta todo ser viviente. Si no hay nada temible para los mismos elementos en esta transformación incesante de uno en otro ¿por que temer a la transformación y disolución de todas las cosas? Esto es conforme a la naturaleza y nada es malo en cuanto a ella se acomoda

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us

Often have I marvelled how each one of us loves himself above all men, yet sets less store by his own opinion of himself than by that of everyone else.

All things fade and quickly turn to myth: quickly too utter oblivion drowns them. And I am talking of those who shone with some wonderful brilliance: the rest, once they have breathed their last, are immediately 'beyond sigh, beyond knowledge'. But what in any case is everlasting memory? Utter emptiness.