Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they're human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you'll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven't really hurt you. They haven't diminished your ability to choose.

Failure to observe what is in the mind of another has seldom made a man unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

No malgastes lo que te queda de vida en conjeturar sobre los demás, a no ser que busques el bien común; pues si te dedicas a imaginar qué hace la gente, por qué, qué dice, que piensa, qué trama, y cosas parecidas, dejarás de observar tu propia conciencia interior.

Other people's mistakes? Leave them to their makers.

Stupidity is expecting figs in winter, or children in old age.

Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.

27. Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.

We live only in the present, in this fleet-footed moment. The rest is lost and behind us, or ahead of us and may never be found. Little of life we know, little the plot of earth on which we dwell, little the memory of even the most famous who have lived, and this memory itself is preserved by generations of little men, who know little about themselves and far less about those who died long ago.

When you are offended at any man's fault, immediately turn to yourself and reflect in what manner you yourself have erred:

Go on abusing yourself, O my soul! Not long and you will lose the opportunity to show yourself any respect. We have only one life to live, and yours is almost over. Because you have chosen not to respect yourself, you have made your happiness subject to the opinions others have of you. (Book 2, Verse 6)

7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been.

Most of what we say and do is not necessary, and its omission would save both time and trouble. At every step, therefore, a man should ask himself, 'Is this one of the things that are superfluous?' Moreover, not idle actions only but even idle impressions ought to be suppressed; for the unnecessary action will not ensue.

III. Hippocrates having cured many sicknesses, fell sick himself and died.

Not the "not" but the "not yet.

Kingship: to earn a bad reputation by good deeds.

You've given aid and they've received it. And yet, like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a Good Deed, to be repaid in kind. Why?

Well, then, shall mere glory distract you? Look at the swiftness of the oblivion of all men; the gulf of endless time, behind and before; the hollowness of applause, the fickleness and folly of those who seem to speak well of you, and the narrow room in which it is confined. This should make you pause. For the entire earth is a point in space, and how small a corner thereof is this your dwelling place, and how few and how paltry those who will sing your praises here!

Pride is a master of deception: when you think you're occupied in the weightiest business, that's when he has you in his spell.

A human being has close kinship with the whole human race -- not a bond of blood or seed, but a community of mind. And you have forgotten this too, that every man's mind is a god and has flowed from that source; that nothing is our own property, but even our child, our body, our very soul have come from that source; that all is as thinking makes it so; that each of us lives only the present moment, and the present moment is all we lose.

To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with a light and superficial knowledge, nor quickly to assent to things commonly spoken of:

Use the setback to practice other virtues.

No thefts of free will reported."[—Epictetus.]

When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they're misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard?

A poor soul burdened with a corpse,' Epictetus calls you.