1
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.Marcus Aurelius
2
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.Marcus Aurelius
3
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...Marcus Aurelius
4
Our life is what our thoughts make it.Marcus Aurelius
5
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.Marcus Aurelius
6
Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.Marcus Aurelius
7
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.Marcus Aurelius
8
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.Marcus Aurelius
9
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.Marcus Aurelius
10
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.Marcus Aurelius
11
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.Marcus Aurelius
12
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.Marcus Aurelius
13
Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.Marcus Aurelius
14
Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?Marcus Aurelius
15
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.Marcus Aurelius
16
Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.Marcus Aurelius
17
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.Marcus Aurelius
18
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.Marcus Aurelius
19
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.Marcus Aurelius
20
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.Marcus Aurelius
21
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.Marcus Aurelius
22
All things fade and quickly turn to myth.Marcus Aurelius
23
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.Marcus Aurelius
24
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.Marcus Aurelius
25
The time of a man's life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful; to be brief, as a stream so are all things belonging to the body; as a dream, or as a smoke, so are all that belong unto the soul. Our life is a warfare, and a mere pilgrimage. Fame after life is no better than oblivion. What is it then that will adhere and follow? Only one thing, philosophy. And philosophy doth consist in this, for a man to preserve that spirit which is within him, from all manner of contumelies and injuries, and above all pains or pleasures; never to do anything either rashly, or feignedly, or hypocritically: only to depend from himself, and his own proper actions: all things that happen unto him to embrace contentendly, as coming from Him from whom he himself also came; and above all things, with all meekness and a calm cheerfulness, to expect death, as being nothing else but the resolution of those elements, of which every creature is composed. And if the elements themselves suffer nothing by their perpetual conversion of one into another, that dissolution, and alteration, which is so common unto all, why should it be feared by any? Is not this according to nature? But nothing that is according to nature can be evil. .Marcus Aurelius
26
Striid and Wthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm.Marcus Aurelius
27
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.Marcus Aurelius
28
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.Marcus Aurelius
29
For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.Marcus Aurelius
30
If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them.Marcus Aurelius
31
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.Marcus Aurelius
32
As for thy thirst after books, away with it with all speed.Marcus Aurelius
33
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.Marcus Aurelius
34
No man is happy who does not think himself so.Marcus Aurelius
35
Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.Marcus Aurelius
36
That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of thyself. And these too change, and they murmur not".Marcus Aurelius
37
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.Marcus Aurelius
38
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.Marcus Aurelius
39
The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.Marcus Aurelius
40
Give up your thirst for books, so that you do not die a grouch.Marcus Aurelius
41
Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.Marcus Aurelius
42
That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.Marcus Aurelius
43
You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.Marcus Aurelius
44
Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.Marcus Aurelius
45
Things of themselves cannot touch the soul at all. They have no entry to the soul, and cannot turn or move it. The soul alone turns and moves itself, making all externals presented to it cohere with the judgements it thinks worthy of itself.Marcus Aurelius
46
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?Marcus Aurelius
47
Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.Marcus Aurelius
48
Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on to say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?' The student of nature will only laugh at you; just as a carpenter or a shoemaker would laugh, if you found fault with the shavings and scraps from their work which you saw in the shop. Yet they, at least, have somewhere to throw their litter; whereas Nature has no such out-place. That is the miracle of her workmanship: that in spite of this self-limitation, she nevertheless transmutes into herself everything that seems worn-out or old or useless, and re-fashions it into new creations, so as never to need either fresh supplies from without, or a place to discard her refuse. Her own space, her own materials and her own skill are sufficient for her. .Marcus Aurelius
49
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.Marcus Aurelius
50
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.Marcus Aurelius