Here are the best collection of Marcus Aurelius quotes and sayings. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He is considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers, and his work “Meditations” is still popular today.
His life and work are a good example of Stoicism, a philosophy that emphasizes living in line with one’s natural talents and accepting what one cannot control.
Below is the list of inspiring Marcus Aurelius Quotes, also you can read some related topics such as Maya Angelou Quotes.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Nothing natural is evil. – Marcus Aurelius
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. – Marcus Aurelius
Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact, Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. – Marcus Aurelius
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony. – Marcus Aurelius
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. – Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. – Marcus Aurelius
Life is short – the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good. – Marcus Aurelius
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. – Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. – Marcus Aurelius
The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. – Marcus Aurelius
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. – Marcus Aurelius
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. – Marcus Aurelius
It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them. – Marcus Aurelius
Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just. – 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
We live only now. Everything else is either passed or is unknown. – Marcus Aurelius
Be content to seem what you really are. – Marcus Aurelius
Our life is what our thoughts make it. – Marcus Aurelius
Each of us needs what nature gives us when nature gives it. – Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. – Marcus Aurelius
It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed. – 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
If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective? – Marcus Aurelius
How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life. – Marcus Aurelius
When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval. – Marcus Aurelius
Famous Marcus Aurelius Quotes
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‘This is a misfortune’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.
A rock is thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.
The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.
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?
True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, good actions.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence.
Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
A man when he has done a good act does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.
Everything that happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
For God’s sake, stop honoring externals, quit turning yourself into the tool of mere matter, or of people who can supply you or deny you those material things.
Short Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Nothing should be done without a purpose.
Confine yourself to the present.
To accept without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.
Anger cannot be dishonest.
The act of dying is one of the acts of life.
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.
What is your art? To be good.
Men exist for the sake of one another.
The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
Glory’s an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather.
Someone despises me. That’s their problem.
A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.
The rational animal is consequently also a social animal.
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.
Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Leadership
First, do nothing inconsiderately or without a purpose. Second, make your acts refer to nothing else but a social end.
What we do now echoes in eternity.
Here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not “This is a misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune.
That no one could ever have felt patronized by him – or in a position to patronize him. A sense of humor.
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.
In your actions, don’t procrastinate, In your conversations, don’t confuse, In your thoughts, don’t wander, In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive, In your life, don’t be all about business.
Each day provides its own gifts.
The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.
A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.
It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.
That which isn’t good for the hive isn’t good for the bee.
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind himself.
Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes
You can commit injustice by doing nothing.
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.
Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time.
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.
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.
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes Life, Love, And Kindness
Though you break your heart, men will go on as before.
You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
Because most of what we say and do is not essential. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
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.
The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.
People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat.
If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if you are not able, blame yourself, or not even yourself.
Stop wishing for something else to happen, for a different fate. That is to live a false life.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
To have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful.
That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.
Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.
Kindness is invincible.
People exist for one another. You can instruct or endure them.
No one loses any other life than the one he now lives, nor does one live any other life than that which he will lose.
From my brother Severus to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice.
What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.
It loved to happen.
From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend’s accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition.
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.
Shall any man hate me? That will be his affair. But I will be mild and benevolent toward every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Death
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left, and live it properly.
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Every part of me then will be reduced by change into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another part of the universe, and so on forever.
Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.
Let each thing you would do, say, or intend, be like that of a dying person.
Speaking for myself, I hope death overtakes me when I’m occupied solely with the care of my character, in an effort to make it passionless, free, unrestricted, and unrestrained.
About death: Whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either extinction or change.
Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able – be good.
Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but recon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
But death and life, honor, and dishonor, pain and pleasure – all these things, equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.
A brief existence is common to all things, and yet you avoid and pursue all things as if they would be eternal.
Think continually that all kinds of men, pursuits, and nations are dead.
I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.
Death is not an evil. What is it then? The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination.
Death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear. Which is why we praise the poet who wrote, ‘Death is not fearful, but dying like a coward is.’
Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.
Make sure you’re not made ‘Emperor,’ avoid that imperial stain. It can happen to you, so keep yourself simple, good, pure, saintly, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, and strong for your proper work.
Marcus Quotes About Anger, Pain & Fear
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it?
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
How soon will time cover all things?
Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?
It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.
In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: they are hope, envy, hatred, fear, and contempt.
To be angry at something means you’ve forgotten: That everything that happens is natural. That the responsibility is theirs, not yours.
When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.
The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.
Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.
When another blames you or hates you, or when men say anything injurious about you, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see what kind of men they are. You will discover that there is no reason to be concerned that these men have this or that opinion about you.
Pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting if you bear in mind that it has its limits, and if you add nothing to it in imagination.
Pain too is just a scary mask: look under it and you will see. The body sometimes suffers, but relief is never far behind. And if that isn’t good enough for you, the door stands open; otherwise, put up with it. The door needs to stay open whatever the circumstances, with the result that our problems disappear.
If you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don’t like doing something, make a habit of doing something different. The same goes for moral inclinations. When you get angry, you should know that you aren’t guilty of an isolated lapse, you’ve encouraged a trend and thrown fuel on the fire.
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