Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Nature in no case cometh short of art, for the arts are copiers of natural forms.

The universe is flux, life is opinion.

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.

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.

Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?

Every instant of time... is a pinprick of eternity.

And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?

Live every day as if they last.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts ... take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

A man's life is what his thoughts make it.

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.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Past and future have no power over you. Just the present - and even that can be minimized.

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.

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.

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.

Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.

One universe made up all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth.

Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.

It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none.

God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose.

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.

Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.