Top 783 Quotes & Sayings by Marcus Aurelius - Page 13

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.

Remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment.

They know not how many things are signified by the words stealing, sowing, buying, keeping quiet, seeing what ought to be done; for this is not effected by the eyes, but by another kind of vision.

Let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.

Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee?

The world is mere change, and this life, opinion.

That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.

The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!

...small too even the longest fame thereafter, which is itself subject to a succession of little men who quickly die, and have no knowledge of themselves, let alone of those long dead.

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

Light may earth's crumbling sand be laid on thee, that dogs may dig thy bones up easily

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself. For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it - either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else that you alone choose.

Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives us.

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.

Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.

I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed.

What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts.

You exist but as a part inherent in a greater whole. Do not live as though you had a thousand years before you. The common due impends; while you live, and while you may, be good.

Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor

Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?

We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.

In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable-boy's. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.

To a rational being it is the same thing to act according to nature and according to reason.

Men exist for each other. Then either improve them, or put up with them.

The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else.

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.

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.

Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.

This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world?

There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. C. S. LEWIS, The Four Loves Life is short. Eternity is long. BENTLEY LITTLE, His Father's Son What we do now echoes in eternity.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

A man should remove not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for then superfluous activity will not follow.

If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common weal?

Spend your brief moment according to nature's law, and serenely greet the journey's end as an olive falls when it is ripe, blessing the branch that bare it, and giving thanks to the tree that gave it life.

Vex not thy spirit at the course of things, they heed not thy vexations

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?

Why should any of these things that happen externally distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing: cease roving to and fro.

Thanks to the gods I didn't spend much time while growing up with my grandfather's mistress and preserved the flower of my youth, waiting for the proper time to demonstrate my virility.

If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?

As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.

It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none.

As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad, and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes, has no value for him.

All things change, and you yourself are constantly wasting away. So also is the universe.

God sees the minds (ruling principles) of all men bared of the material vesture and rind and impurities. For with his intellectual part alone he touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived from himself into these bodies. And if thou also usest thyself to do this, thou wilt rid thyself of thy much trouble. For he who regards not the poor flesh which envelops him, surely will not trouble himself by looking after raiment and dwelling and fame and such like externals and show.

How soon will time cover all things.

On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That's all you need to know. Nothing more. Don't demand to know "why such things exist." Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.

As for literature, thefts cannot harm it, while the lapse of ages augments its value

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to keep this in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.

Reason and the reasoning faculty need no foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own purposes. They move within themselves, and make directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in accordance with them are called right acts, for they lead along the right road.

In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.

It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.

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.