Marcus Aurelius
That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.Collection: Gone
How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear.Collection: Time
The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct.Collection: Death
You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It's as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear.Collection: Giving Up
All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.Collection: Endurance
He does not write at all whose poems no man readsCollection: Reading
It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.Collection: Ignorance
I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.Collection: Character
A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.Collection: Men
The universe is in change, life is an opinion.Collection: Life
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.Collection: Inspirational
Man must be arched and buttressed from within, else the temple wavers to the dust.Collection: Strength
No one wearies of benefits received.Collection: Benefits
Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds.Collection: Money
Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.Collection: Life
How powerful is man! He is able to do all that God wishes him to do. He is able to accept all that God sends upon him.Collection: Powerful
Consider how many do not even know your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how those who now praise you will presently blame you.Collection: Names
Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.Collection: Divinity
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.Collection: Life
Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.Collection: Plato
"Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocialCollection: Morning
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.Collection: Thinking
Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.Collection: Lying
If thou workest at that which is before thee ... expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to Nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.Collection: Men
The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhereCollection: Home
The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don't.Collection: This Life
Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.Collection: Confused
Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of great relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are ONE.Collection: Together
...in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found.Collection: Evil
A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.Collection: Men
When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it.Collection: Over You
We are born for synergy, just like the feet, just like the hands, just like the eyes, just like the rows of upper and lower teeth. Working against each other is unnatural, and being annoyed and turning one's back is counterproductive.Collection: Eye
Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.Collection: Time
He who eats my bread, does my will.Collection: Hard Work
When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.Collection: Men
Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Hands
Everything is mere opinion.Collection: Opinion
Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.Collection: Happy Birthday
When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.Collection: Self
How easy it is to repel and release every impression which is troublesome and immediately to be tranquil.Collection: Peace
To expect an impossibility is madness.Collection: Madness
Nature set a limit on sleep - as it did on eating and drinking. And youre over the limit. But not of working. There youre still below your quota. You dont love yourself enough. Or youd love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. They even forget to wash and eat.Collection: Drinking
Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.Collection: Animal
Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.Collection: Cutting
Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity.Collection: Community
Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind. Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived.Collection: Doe
He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live.Collection: Loss
How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.Collection: Together