Marcus Aurelius Quotes - Life Quotes
Simple Inspirational Quotes
Inspirations for Business and Life
Marcus Aurelius Quotes
"Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Look within; within is the fountain of all good." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Our life is what our thoughts make it." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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 opinions of himself than on the opinions of others." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Do every act of your life as if it were your last." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Poverty is the mother of crime." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Each day provides its own gifts." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"… everything is born from change. …there is nothing nature loves more that to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the one that make plants and children? Go deeper." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Body. Soul. Mind. Sensations: the body. Desires: the soul. Reasoning: the mind." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the goods, and then make your way through life - no one's master and no one's slave.
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river; the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us - a chasm whose depths we cannot see." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"If it's time for you to go, leave willingly - as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"The world is a living being - one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Take the shortest route. The one that nature planned - to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculations and pretension." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad?" ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"My city and state are Rome. But as a human being? The world. So for me, “good” can only mean what's good for both communities." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don't." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one's energy, that's one modesty, another's generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we're practically showered with them." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothings can happen to you that is not required by Nature." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a solder 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?" ~ Marcus Aurelius
"It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What's closer to nature's heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can't you see? It's just the same with you - and just as vital to nature."~ Marcus Aurelius
"My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?" ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Stop talking what good man is like, and just be one." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives us." ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"The main thing we were made for is to work with others." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"You have to assemble your life yourself – action by action." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Past and future have no power over you. Just the present – and even that can be minimized." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"People find pressure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"I was a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune, good character, good intentions, and good actions." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Give yourself a gift: the present moment." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"What humans experience is part of human experience." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"People exist for one another." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Enter others' minds and let them enter yours." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"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." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What's surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, "I have a purpose," and the other goods as well." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Stick to what's in front of you - idea, action, utterance." ~ Marcus Aurelius
"Don't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand. …Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present." ~ Marcus Aurelius