In a world filled with constant noise and distraction, the timeless wisdom of the Stoics offers a refreshing sense of clarity and calm. Among them, Marcus Aurelius stands out not only as a Roman emperor but also as a profound philosopher. His meditations, written as personal reflections, have inspired generations seeking strength, purpose, and resilience. In this post, we’ll explore some of the most impactful Marcus Aurelius quotes, uncovering the deep truths behind his words and how they continue to guide us in today’s fast-paced world.
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and philosopher who left behind a wealth of wisdom in his writings. Here are some of the best Marcus Aurelius quotes that offer insight into life, happiness, and inner peace.
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who ruled from 161 to 180 AD. He was known for his philosophy of Stoicism, which emphasized the importance of self-control, reason, and virtue. His writings, known as the Meditations, are considered one of the greatest works of philosophy in the Western tradition.
Marcus Aurelius was born in 121 AD in Rome to a wealthy and influential family. He was educated by some of the most prominent philosophers of his time and was trained in the art of rhetoric and public speaking. At the age of 17, he was adopted by the emperor Antoninus Pius, who later made him his successor.
During his reign as emperor, Marcus Aurelius was known for his military campaigns against the Parthians and Germanic tribes. He also oversaw many public works projects, including the construction of roads and aqueducts, and he worked to improve the administration of justice.
Despite his many accomplishments as emperor, Marcus Aurelius is perhaps best known for his philosophy of Stoicism. He believed that individuals should focus on developing their inner strength and character, rather than seeking external rewards or pleasures. He emphasized the importance of reason and rationality in making decisions, and he believed that individuals should strive to live virtuous lives in accordance with nature.
The Meditations, Marcus Aurelius’s collection of personal writings, reflect these beliefs and provide insight into his inner thoughts and struggles. The work is divided into 12 books and covers a wide range of topics, from the nature of the universe to the importance of humility and gratitude.
Marcus Aurelius died in 180 AD while on a military campaign in the Danube region. He was succeeded by his son, Commodus, who was known for his cruelty and incompetence. Despite the shortcomings of his successor, Marcus Aurelius is remembered as one of the greatest Roman emperors and philosophers of all time.
Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes
1. Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
2. You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
3. Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.
4. Be content with what you are, and wish not to change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
5. Receive without pride, let go without attachment.
6. 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.
7. Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence.
8. Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
9. Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.
10. Each of us needs what nature gives us when nature gives it.
11. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.
12. Treat whatever happens as wholly natural; not novel or hard to deal with; but familiar and easily handled.
13. 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.
14. 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… then make that day count.
15. Being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them.
16. No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.
17. Objective judgment, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.
18. You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind – things that exist only there – and clear out space for yourself.
19. Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.
20. To live the good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.
21. Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.
22. There is but one thing of real value – to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.
23. A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.
24. Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.
25. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.
26. To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.
27. Show me one person who cares how they act, someone for whom success is less important than the manner in which it is achieved. While out walking, who gives any thought to the act of walking itself? Who pays attention to the process of planning, not just the outcome?
28. Concentrate every minute like a Roman — like a man — on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions.
29. This is the mark of a perfect character – to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.
30. Labor willingly and diligently, undistracted and aware of the common interest.
31. Give yourself a gift: the present moment.
32. Discard your misperceptions. Stop being jerked like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present.
33. Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.
34. The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
35. Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
36. Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
37. You have to assemble your life yourself – action by action.
38. If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
39. You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others.
40. Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.
41. Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice?
42. Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you.
43. 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.
44. The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.
45. To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.
46. It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.
47. Remember that there is a God who desires neither praise nor glory from men created in his image, but rather that they, guided by the understanding given them, should in their actions become like unto him.
48. Whosoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whosoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.
49. In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself.
50. Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth.
51. Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
52. No man is happy who does not think himself so.
53. Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.
54. Failing to understand the workings of one’s own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.
55. Why should anyone be afraid of change? What can take place without it? What can be more pleasing or more suitable to universal nature? Can you take your bath without the firewood undergoing a change? Can you eat without the food undergoing a change? And can anything useful be done without change? Don’t you see that for you to change is just the same, and is equally necessary for universal nature?
56. Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforward ness, and all other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.
57. Love the people with whom fate brings you together
58. Nothing is evil which is according to nature.
59. A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.
60. Submit to the fate of your own free will.
61. A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.
62. Welcome every experience the looms of fate may weave for you.
63. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
64. The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.
65. There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won’t hail the occasion with delight.
66. Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill.
67. Happiness is no other than soundness and perfection of mind.
68. The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don’t.
69. Life is a stranger’s sojourn, a night at an inn.
70. Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.
71. How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.
72. Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.
73. How soon will time cover all things.
74. Live not one’s life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.
75. Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both.
76. I seek the truth…it is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance that does harm.
77. Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of great relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are ONE.
78. All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.
79. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: ‘Is this, or is it not, something necessary?’ And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.
80. My true Self is free. I cannot be contained.
81. Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which you see, and out of their substance will make other things and again other things… in order that the world may be ever new.
82. It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.
83. The passing minute is every man’s equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours.
84. We are the other of the other.
85. There is no misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good fortune.
86. And yet, after all, what is posthumous fame? Altogether vanity.
87. I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.
88. That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.
89. Everything is but what we think it.
90. Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.
91. Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.
92. Receive the gifts of fortune without pride, and part with them without reluctance.
93. Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.
94. The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.
95. The wrongdoer is often the person who left something undone, rather than the person who has done something.
96. To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief.
97. Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.
98. We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
99. Men are born for each other’s sake, so either teach people or endure them.
100. The whole contains nothing that is not for its advantage. By remembering that I am part of such a whole, I shall be content with everything that happens.
101. Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish.
102. Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.
103. People generally despise where they flatter, and cringe to those they would gladly overtop; so that truth and ceremony are two things.
104. The offender needs pity, not wrath; those who must needs be corrected, should be treated with tact and gentleness; and one must be always ready to learn better. ‘The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.’
105. Get rid of the judgement … get rid of the ‘I am hurt,’ you are rid of the hurt itself.
106. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.
107. The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
108. Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
109. It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities .
110. A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation.
111. Do not expect Plato’s ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.
112. When men hate or blame you, or say hurtful things about you, look deeply into their hearts and see what kind of men they are. You’ll see how unnecessary it is to strain after their good opinion. Yet you must still think kindly of them. they are your neighbors. The gods help them as they do you, by dreams and oracles, to win their hearts’ desires.
113. Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life.
114. You are making an inopportune rejection of what Nature has given you today, if all your mind is set on what men will say of you tomorrow.
115. Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains.
116. When the sovereign spirit within us is true to nature, it stands poised and ready to adjust to every change in circumstances and to seize each new opportunity. It doesn’t approach an object with prejudice or preconception, but handles each thing dispassionately before embracing it and, if necessary, finds advantage in what opposes it. It is like fire in this regard. Whereas a feeble flame might suffocate under a pile of dry sticks, a robust fire consumes everything it touches. The more objects of any kind heaped on it, the higher it rises, the hotter it burns.
117. To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is the perfection of character.
118. Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure.
119. “Sweep me up and send me where you please.” For there I will retain my spirit, tranquil and content, as long as it can feel and act in harmony with its own nature. Is a change of place enough reason for my soul to become unhappy and worn, for me to become depressed, humbled, cowering, and afraid? Can you discover any reasons for this?
120. For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.
121. The soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then, with a continuous series of such thoughts as these – that where a man can live, there – if he will – he can also live well.
122. Even while a thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be.
123. Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?
124. Death, like birth, is one of nature’s mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.
125. The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.
126. Neither in thy actions be sluggish nor in thy conversation without method, nor wandering in thy thoughts, nor let there be in thy soul inward contention nor external effusion, nor in life be so busy as to have no leisure.
127. Always follow these two rules: first, act only on what your reasoning mind proposes for the good of humanity, and second, change your opinion if someone shows you it’s wrong. This change of mind must proceed only from the conviction that it’s both correct and for the common good, but not because it will give you pleasure and make you popular.
128. Glory arrives too late when it comes only to one’s ashes
129. Gluttony and drunkenness have two evils attendant on them; they make the carcass smart, as well as the pocket.
130. For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.
131. People find pressure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.
132. Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.
133. Outward objects cannot take hold of the soul, nor force their passage into her, nor set any of her wheels going. No, the impression comes from herself, and it is her own motions which affect her. As for the contingencies of fortune, they are either great or little, according to the opinion she has of her own strength.
134. The one thing worth living for is to keep one’s soul pure.
135. Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the emerald were always saying this: “Whatever any one does or says, I must still be emerald, and keep my color.
136. A man should remove not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for then superfluous activity will not follow.
137. The nature of the All moved to make the universe.
138. The gods have provided me with clear and compelling signs of what it means to live in conformity to nature. They did their part. So far as their gifts, aid, and inspiration are concerned, nothing prevented me from following the path prescribed by nature. If from time to time I have strayed from this path, the fault lies with me and with my failure to heed the gods’ signs, or rather, their explicit instructions.
139. Praise adds nothing to beauty–makes it neither better nor worse.
140. He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live.
141. No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.
142. Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.
143. A man is a little soul carrying around a courpse.
144. All that is from the gods is full of Providence.
145. Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity… yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. …he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal …he has allowed him to be returned and to be united and to resume his place as a part.
146. Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.
147. In man’s life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious.
148. So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don’t let anything distract you. You’ve wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.
149. To them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.
150. The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable . He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man: but he who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy.
151. Remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment.
152. From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness.
153. As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
154. I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.
155. The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
156. Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
157. The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.
158. Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.
159. 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.
160. As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.
161. A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all – that is myself.
162. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
163. No one can lose either the past or the future – how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? … It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.
164. As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad, and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes, has no value for him.
165. If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong.
166. Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.
167. Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.
168. What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts.
169. When thou art offended at any man’s fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself. For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.
170. When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it.
171. 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.’
172. Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.
173. Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.
174. In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.
175. Everything is born from change. …there is nothing nature loves more that to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the one that make plants and children? Go deeper.
176. Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault with what is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only atoms, and nothing else than a mixture and dispersion. Why, then, art thou disturbed? Say to this ruling faculty, Art thou dead, art thou corrupted, art thou playing the hypocrite, art thou become a beast, dost thou herd and feed with the rest?
177. 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.
178. Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place and better fortified than this, hath no man.
179. Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.
180. Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.
181. Don’t let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand. …Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present.
182. The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it – either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else that you alone choose.
183. Let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.
184. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
185. The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.
186. What we do in life ripples in eternity.
187. Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.
188. A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.
189. A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values.
190. I’m going to be meeting with people today who talk too much – people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won’t be surprised or disturbed, for I can’t imagine a world without such people.
191. The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level.
192. The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.
193. A man’s true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.
194. A person’s life is dyed with the color of his imagination.
195. To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
196. I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth.
197. External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.
198. Poverty is the mother of crime.
199. Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.
200. The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That’s all you need to know.
201. Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
202. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
203. The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
204. Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.
205. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
206. Do not be ashamed of help.
207. If it’s in your control, why do you do it? If it’s in someone else’s control, then who are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way. Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage.
208. If you are distressed by something, it is due to your own estimate of it; and you have the power to change it at will.
209. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
210. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
211. In an expression of true gratitude, sadness is conspicuous only by its absence
212. All things fade and quickly turn to myth.
213. To expect an impossibility is madness.
214. Take away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed,’ and the harm is taken away.
215. ”Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial
216. Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.
217. Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.
218. The greatest part of what we say and do is really unnecessary. If a man takes this to heart, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.
219. It is a sin to persue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as a evil.
220. Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.
221. Everything is mere opinion.
222. Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be, become one yourself!
223. Our life is what our thoughts make it. Do every act of your life as if it were your last. In a word, your life is short. You must make the most of the present with the aid of reason and justice. Since it is possible that you may be quitting life this very moment, govern every act and thought accordingly.
224. Change your attitude to the things that bother you and you will be aware of them.
Conclusion: Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Whether you’re navigating personal challenges or striving for greater self-awareness, Marcus Aurelius quotes offer a steady hand and enduring insight.
His words remind us that while we cannot control the world around us, we can always control our reactions and mindset.
By reflecting on these timeless quotes, we gain not only a glimpse into the mind of a great philosopher-king but also a powerful toolkit for living a more intentional, meaningful life.
Let his wisdom continue to shape your thoughts and actions, one quote at a time.
