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Marcus Aurelius
- You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength
- You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say
- You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength
- Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them
- The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts
- When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love
- The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury
- The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts
- 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
- Our life is what our thoughts make it
- 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
- 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 opinion of himself than on the opinion of others
- If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it
- Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears
- How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it
- 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
- Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil
- Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness
- You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say
- Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life
- Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours
- Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence
- Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too
- For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.
- The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way
- The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it
- Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
- Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one
- Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it
- How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life
- If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt
- Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour
- Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them
- A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values
- Though you break your heart, men will go on as before
- 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
- The things you think about determine the quality of your mind
- 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
- Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil
- It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own
- If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now
- If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now
- The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.
- The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts
- Confine yourself to the present
- Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back
- Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it
- Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been
- Misfortune nobly born is good fortune
- Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew
- The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall
- Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not
- When you arise in the moring, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love
- All men are made one for another: either then teach them better or bear with them
- Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them
- Unhappy am I because this has happened to me. Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future
- How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life
- Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just
- Anger cannot be dishonest
- Everything – a horse, a vine – is created for some duty… For what task, then, were you yourself created?
- Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself
- The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere
- A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something
- Neither worse then or better is a thing made by being praised
- 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.
- Neither worse then or better is a thing made by being praised
- The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly
- That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee
- Do not be ashamed of help
- Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside
- 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 opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject
- You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone
- It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live
- Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself
- Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them
- Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you
- Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us
- Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary’?
- The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor
- Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?
- What does not benefit the hive is no benefit to the bee.
- Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind
- It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own
- When you are offended at anyone’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. By attending to them, you will forget your anger and learn to live wisely
- Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
- Nothing is evil which is according to nature
- Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight
- If it’s in your control, why do you do it? If it’s in someone else’s control, then who are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way. Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage
- Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them
- Without a purpose, nothing should be done
- A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions