Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

X. Labour not as one to whom it is appointed to be wretched, nor as one that either would be pitied, or admired; but let this be thine only care and desire; so always and in all things to prosecute or to forbear, as the law of charity, or mutual society doth require.

Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The universe, then, is God, of whom the popular gods are manifestations; while legends and myths are allegorical. The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed.

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

43. Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone.

Never shirk the proper dispatch of your duty, no matter if you are freezing or hot, groggy or well-rested, vilified or praised, not even if dying or pressed by other demands.

We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish.

The Stoic makes no differentiation between a small act of kindness by a simple person and a great act of virtue from a learned sage. Virtue is virtue, and in both cases the result is happiness for the one who is virtuous.

He claimed that a man's life should be valued according to the value of the things to which he gave his attention.

He who loves fame considers another man's activity to be his own good; and he who loves pleasure, his own sensations; but he who has understanding, considers his own acts to be his own good. It

If you remove your judgement of anything that seems painful, you yourself stand quite immune to pain. 'What self?' Reason. 'But I am not just reason.' Granted. So let reason cause itself no pain, and if some other part of you is in trouble, it can form its own judgement for itself.

The existence of evil does not harm the world. And an individual act of evil does not harm the victim. Only one person is harmed by it—and he can stop being harmed as soon as he decides to.

To be free of passion and yet full of love.

We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it?

That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.

He is an abscess on the universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our common nature through being displeased with the things that happen; for the same nature that produces these things has produced you, too:

Your character is simply the sum of your thoughts over time.

Look in, let not either the proper quality, or the true worth of anything pass thee, before thou hast fully it.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.

For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.

Jangan mencintai apapun kecuali yang datang padamu, karena adakah yang dapat memenuhi kebutuhanmu dengan lebih tepat?

Justice: so that you'll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.

From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have not leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relations to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.

Dig deep; the water- goodness- is down there. And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up