70+ Marcus Aurelius Quotes to Inspire Wisdom, Virtue, and the Art of Living
- April 26, 121 – March 17, 180
- Roman Empire
- Roman Emperor
- Influenced by Stoic philosophy, he wrote “Meditations” and practiced ideal governance as a philosophical leader, and was later praised as one of the Five Good Emperors.
- “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
- “Confine yourself to the present.”
- “We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.”
- “Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
- “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
- “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
- “Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.”
- “Be content to seem what you really are.”
- “Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.”
- “Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.”
- “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
- “There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.”
- “What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.”
- “Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.”
- “Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”
- “Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.”
- “A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”
- “Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.”
- “Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‘This is a misfortune’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.'”
- “Poverty is the mother of crime.”
- “Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.”
- “The act of dying is one of the acts of life.”
- “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
- “When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.”
- “Men exist for the sake of one another.”
- “To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.”
- “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
- “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.”
- “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
- “Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.”
- “Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.”
- “Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.”
- “Anger cannot be dishonest.”
- “Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”
- “Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”
- “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- “Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.”
- “The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.”
- “Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.”
- “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
- “A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.”
- “Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
- “To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”
- “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
- “The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.”
- “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”
- “A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.”
- “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
- “And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.”
- “I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.”
- “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.”
- “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
- “To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”
- “To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.”
- “How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”
- “Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”
- “If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”
- “Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”
- “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.”
- “The universe is transformation: life is opinion.”
- “Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.”
- “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
- “The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”
- “That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.”
- “Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.”
- “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
- “Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.”
- “Where a man can live, he can also live well.”
- “Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.”
- “Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.”
- “Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.”
- “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
- “Each day provides its own gifts.”
- “Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.”
- “Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”
- “Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.”
- “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
- “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”