Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.”

Meditations, Book IX | IX, 3

“Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?”

Meditations, Book IX | IX, 21

“The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”

Meditations, Book II | II, 14

“Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 4

“Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able—be good.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 17

“From Apollonius , true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.”

I, 5

“Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. (Hays translation)”

I, 9

“There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return.”

Meditations, Book II | II, 4

“Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich. (Hays translation)”

I, 3

“What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it.”

Meditations, Book II | All that is from the gods is full of Providence. II, 3

“Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.”

Meditations, Book III | III, 14

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

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

ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸ εὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι | VII, 67

“Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.”

I, 1

“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 18

“Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.”

Meditations, Book VII | VII, 28

“To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.”

Meditations, Book VIII | Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy error. (Long translation) VIII, 16

“Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 3

“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying . . . or busy with other assignments.”

Meditations, Book VI | VI, 2

“Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. (Hays translation)”

I, 15

“He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.”

I, 16

“Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.”

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. (Hays translation) | Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them thro

“Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill. II, 1”

Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.

“Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.”

Meditations, Book II | II, 7

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”

The universe is flux, life is opinion.

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart.”

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Meditations, Book II | II, 11

“Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.”

Meditations, Book XII | τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν; XII, 29

“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.”

Quotes from different translations | VIII. 51

“You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you.”

Meditations, Book II | Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine. II, 5

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

Meditations, Book III | III, 11

“Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.”

I, 8

“Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 20

“Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 36

“In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance .”

Meditations, Book VIII | VIII, 39

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

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

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

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

“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.”

VII, 11.

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”

Meditations, Book V | The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts. V, 16

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

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

“Live as on a mountain. ...Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus.”

Meditations, Book X | X, 15

“The ruling power within, when it is in its natural state, is so related to outer circumstances that it easily changes to accord with what can be done and what is given it to do.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 1

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 43

“Confine yourself to the present.”

VII, 29

“Consider thyself to be dead , and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.”

Meditations, Book VII | Variant: Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. VII, 56

“Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 50

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον. | X, 16

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

“Begin each day by telling yourself: today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness — all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil.”

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”

XII, 17

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. (Hays translation)”

Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.

“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”

Meditations, Book IX | IX, 16

“But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”

Meditations, Book V | V, 37