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Marcus Aurelius Quotes on God

Marcus Aurelius's reflections on the divine, gathered here from the Meditations, express the religious dimension of his Stoicism. For Marcus the cosmos is governed by Providence, since what is divine is full of Providence, and even chance is woven into an order from which everything proceeds. This conviction grounds his ethics: a reverent life, he finds, requires surprisingly little, only that one act justly and accept what the whole sends, and that is all even the gods can ask. Marcus also insists on the unity of the human and the divine orders, since nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven and nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth. And he ties the state of the soul to one's thoughts, observing that the soul takes on the colour of its thoughts. These passages show piety and Stoic acceptance as inseparable.

Quotes

  • “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

  • “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

  • “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

  • “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

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

    Meditations, Book III | III, 14

  • “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

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