Marcus Aurelius
Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good.Collection: Death
Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity... yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. ...he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal ...he has allowed him to be returned and to be united and to resume his place as a part.Collection: Beautiful
No form of nature is inferior to art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.Collection: Art
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time-even when hard at work.Collection: People
Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.Collection: Death
Consider frequently the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another. For things are somehow implicated with one another, and all in a way friendly to one another.Collection: Friendly
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be suchCollection: Love
After all, what does fame everlasting mean? Mere vanity.Collection: Vanity
Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.Collection: Thee
The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.Collection: Expression
Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.Collection: Joy
Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee.Collection: Simple
If mind is common to us, then also the reason, whereby we are reasoning beings, is common. If this be so, then also the reason which enjoins what is to be done or left undone is common. If this be so, law also is common; if this be so, we are citizens; if this be so, we are partakers in one constitution; if this be so, the Universe is a kind of Commonwealth.Collection: Law
Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.Collection: Love
Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.Collection: Art
Neither in thy actions be sluggish nor in thy conversation without method, nor wandering in thy thoughts, nor let there be in thy soul inward contention nor external effusion, nor in life be so busy as to have no leisure.Collection: Soul
Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region.Collection: Campaigns
The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.Collection: Men
He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.Collection: Cheerful
Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.Collection: Elements
"Sweep me up and send me where you please." For there I will retain my spirit, tranquil and content, as long as it can feel and act in harmony with its own nature. Is a change of place enough reason for my soul to become unhappy and worn, for me to become depressed, humbled, cowering, and afraid? Can you discover any reasons for this?Collection: Change
When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance revert at once to yourself and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it.Collection: Adversity
Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle...Collection: Philosophical
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.Collection: Men
What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.Collection: Bears
Everything is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.Collection: Death
If souls survive death for all eternity, how can the heavens hold them all? Or for that matter, how can the earth hold all the bodies that have been buried in it? The answers are the same. Just as on earth, with the passage of time, decaying and transmogrified corpses make way for the newly dead, so souls released into the heavens, after a season of flight, begin to break up, burn, and be absorbed back into the womb of reason, leaving room for souls just beginning to fly. This is the answer for those who believe that souls survive death.Collection: Death
Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces - to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What's thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it - and makes it burn still higher.Collection: Fire
In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present: 'I am rising to a man's work.'Collection: Morning
This is the mark of a perfect character - to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.Collection: Character
As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.Collection: Taken
The soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then, with a continuous series of such thoughts as these - that where a man can live, there - if he will - he can also live well.Collection: Men
Every instant of time... is a pinprick of eternity.Collection: Inspirational
Nothing proceeds from nothingness, as also nothing passes away into non-existence.Collection: Passing Away
...if a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come.Collection: Men
It is a shame for the soul to be first to give way in this life, when thy body does not give way.Collection: Giving
Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance - now, at this very moment - of all external events. That's all you need.Collection: Acceptance
Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?Collection: Littles
Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses.Collection: Life
Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou bast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which thou returnestCollection: Love
Give full attention and devotion to each act.Collection: Giving
Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.Collection: Plato
Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.Collection: Philosophy
Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see that they have happened or because he would show a great spirit he is firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit should be stronger than wisdom.Collection: Ignorance
Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more.Collection: Men
Be mindful at all times of the following: the nature of the whole universe, the nature of the part that is me, the relation of the one to the other, the one so vast, the other so small.Collection: Relation
Gluttony and drunkenness have two evils attendant on them; they make the carcass smart, as well as the pocket.Collection: Smart