Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?

In the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.

Man is born for deeds of kindness.

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.

It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him.

The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else.

Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.

Consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.

The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.

But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.

It is the duty of men to love even those who injure them.

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.

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.

Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature?

I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass.

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about. If it is good to say or do something, then it is even better to be criticized for having said or done it.

He does not write at all whose poems no man reads

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

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.

It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.

Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

The man who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know where he lives.