Marcus Aurelius Quotes: 43

• Our life is what our thoughts make it.

• 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.

• When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

• 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.

• The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

• Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

  Meditations

• You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

  Meditations

• 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.

• The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

  Meditations

• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

  Meditations

• 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.

• Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

• 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.

  Meditations

• When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...

  Meditations

• It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

  Meditations

• The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

  Meditations

• If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

  Meditations

• Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.

  Meditations

• 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.

  Meditations

• 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.

  Meditations

• The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

  Meditations

• When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

  Meditations

• The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

  Meditations

• Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune,"but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.

  Meditations

• 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.

  Meditations

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

  Meditations

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

  Meditations

• Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.

  Meditations

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

  Meditations

• Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.

  Meditations

• Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?

  Meditations

• 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.

  Meditations

• If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.

  Meditations

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

  Meditations

• All things fade and quickly turn to myth.

  Meditations

• No man is happy who does not think himself so.

  Meditations

• All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

  Meditations

• From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition.

  Meditations

• Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.

  Meditations

• We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.

  Meditations

• striid andWthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm.

  Meditations

• Each day provides its own gifts.

• Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.