Quotes By Marcus Aurelius

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Men exist for the sake of one another.

Each day provides its own gifts.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

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.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Confine yourself to the present.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.