Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Mind

Quotes

• Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

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

• Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

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

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

  The universe is flux, life is opinion.

• “Confine yourself to the present.”

  VII, 29

• “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

• “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.

• “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

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

  Meditations, Book II | II, 11

• “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

• “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 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

• “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

• “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

• “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

• “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