Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Marcus Aurelius (26 April 121 – 17 March 180 AD), was a Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the 'Five Good Emperors', and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers
Selected Quotes of Marcus Aurelius are:

1. Our life is what our thoughts make it.
    
2. The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
    
3. Live with the gods.
    
4. Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life.
    
5. The universe is change; life is your perception of it.
    
6. All is ephemeral. – fame and the famous as well.
    
7. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
    
8. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.
    
9. You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
    
10. 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.
     
11. 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.
     
12. Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.
     
13. To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.
     
14. Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.
     
15. Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.
     
16. Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
     
17. Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.
     
18. Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
     
19. Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
     
20. Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
     
21. 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.
     
22. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
     
23. Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
     
24. When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.
     
25. 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.
     
26. Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.
     
27. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
     
28. If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
     
29. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
     
30. 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.
     
31. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
     
32. The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
     
33. I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
     
34. If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.
     
35. 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.
     
36. Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.
     
37. Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?
     
38. Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.
     
39. Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.
     
40. 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.
     
41. 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. Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: "To do what needs doing." Look inward. Don't let the true nature of anything elude you. Before long, all existing things will be transformed, to rise like smoke (assuming all things become one), or be dispersed in fragments...to move from one unselfish act to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness...when jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep going back to it.
     
42. Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
     
43. Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.
     
44. A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
     
45. Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.
     
46. That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.
     
47. Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.
     
48. 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.
     
49. Remember this, - that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
     
50. Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.
     
51. Poverty is the mother of crime.
     
52. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.