Marcus Aurelius
Our life is what our thoughts make it.Collection: Life
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.Collection: Anger
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.Collection: Relationship
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.Collection: Life
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.Collection: Love
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.Collection: Inspirational
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Inspirational
The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.Collection: Peace
Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow," and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or 'twill be gone and nevermore within your reach.Collection: Procrastination
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.Collection: Positive Thinking
There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.Collection: Real
Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.Collection: Wise
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Soul
Give yourself a gift: the present moment.Collection: Giving
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.Collection: Philosophical
Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.Collection: Tolerance
Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.Collection: Inspirational
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.Collection: Revenge
Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?Collection: World
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?Collection: Inspirational
A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.Collection: Persons
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.Collection: Way
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.Collection: Silly
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 ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.Collection: Truth
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.Collection: Loyalty
Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind.Collection: Practice
The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.Collection: Adversity
In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself.Collection: Justice
Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.Collection: Fate
Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.Collection: World
Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.Collection: Spiritual
Submit to the fate of your own free will.Collection: Fate
No man is happy who does not think himself so.Collection: Inspirational
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?Collection: Morning
While you live, while it is in your power, be good.Collection: Be Good
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.Collection: Faults
Live each day as if it be your last.Collection: Time
Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it--turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.Collection: Goal
One of the recurring themes in Marcus' handbook is leadership's responsibility to work intelligently with what it is given and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.Collection: Responsibility
Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.Collection: Inspirational
Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.Collection: Happiness
Failing to understand the workings of one's own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.Collection: Mind
Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.Collection: Stoicism
Observe and contemplate on the hidden things of life: how a man's seed is but the beginning, it takes others to bring it to fruition. Think how food undergoes such changes to produce health and strength. See the power of these hidden things which, like the wind cannot been seen, but its effects can be.Collection: Men
The act of dying is one of the acts of life.Collection: Life
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.Collection: Reading
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.Collection: Decision