Marcus Aurelius

You see these fish carved finely in relief by Phidian art? Add water, they will swim

A man should be upright not be kept upright.

Do you make a grievance of weighing so many pounds only instead of three hundred? Then why fret about living so many years only instead of more? Since you are content with the measure of substance allowed you be so also with the measure of time

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several and the majority of our controversies come from that.

The guest at the lower end of the middle couch with three hairs on his bald head and his scalp streaked with pigment who is digging in his big mouth with a toothpick is a fraud Aefulanus He has no teeth

I would rather smell of nothing than of perfume

So great is the modesty of your mind and face Sophronius that I wonder you should ever have become a father

Glory paid to our ashes comes too late

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

You say Senca that you were violated by robbers but the robbers deny it

Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good, and it is always ready to bubble up if you just dig.

Because a thing seems difficult for you do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

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.''

Some things are hurrying into existence and others are hurrying out of it, and of that which is coming into existence part is already extinguished

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

Who persuaded you to cut off the nose of your wife's lover? Wretched husband that was not the part which outraged you! Fool what have you done? Your wife has lost nothing by the operation

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Perhaps there are none more lazy or more truly ignorant than your everlasting readers.

[This event is frankly too big to have opinions about. All I can think to do is point to one of my all-time favorite college quotes:] Think of destiny ... and how puny a part of it you are.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

The passing minute is every man's equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours

You have friends Paullus just like your pictures and vases all antique originals

Galla will and will not comply with my wishes and I cannot tell with her willing and not willing what she wills

Life is neither good or evil but only a place for good and evil.

All things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle

Glory arrives too late when it comes only to one's ashes

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

All is ephemeral - fame and the famous as well

When a poet presents you with blank leaves you should consider it no small present

A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions

He misses what is meant by epigram - who thinks it only frivolous flimflam

You are pretty - we know it, and young - it's true, and rich - who can deny it? But when you praise yourself extravagantly Fabula you appear neither rich nor pretty nor young

If you are distressed by anything external the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Despise not death but welcome it for nature wills it like all else.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

As I was constantly told that my mistress Polla indulged in improper connection with a young libertine, I surprised them and found it was as proper as my own

If it does not fit leave it if it is not true do not say it.

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself and is complete in itself, praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

I could do without your face Chloe and without your neck and your hands and your limbs and to save myself the trouble of mentioning the points in detail I could do without you altogether

The universe is change, life is what thinking makes of it.

Let men see let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

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?

A good man is always a beginner

No form of Nature is inferior to Art, for the arts merely imitate natural forms

As for literature thefts cannot harm it while the lapse of ages augments its value

Philo declares he never dines at home and that is no exaggeration: He has no place whereat to dine in Rome Unless he hooks an invitation

And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.

Always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature and end thy journey in content just as an olive falls off when it is ripe blessing nature who produced it and thanking the tree on which it grew.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief

Fortune gives many too much but none enough

It certainly is uncomfortable for everybody. It's somewhat of an anomaly. We're still in August but temperatures like this are uncommon.

To understand the true quality of people you must look into their minds and examine their pursuits and aversions.

Consider that thou dost not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstance. And in short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgment on another man's acts.

The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhere

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

He who refuses nothing Atticilla will soon have nothing to refuse

Remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives nor lives any other than this which he now loses

Conceal a flaw and the world will imagine the worst

He truly sorrows who sorrows unseen

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

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Light may earth's crumbling sand be laid on thee, that dogs may dig thy bones up easily.

Execute every act of life as though it were thy last

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

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.

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing, the main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unseen attack.

It is a mistake to think that Acerra reeks of yesterday's liquor: Acerra always drinks till next morning

Look back over the past with its changing empires that rose and fell and you can foresee the future too.

A man should remove not only unnecessary acts but also unnecessary thoughts for then superfluous activity will not follow after

Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of and from what kind of governor of it you are descended, that you have a set period assigned you to act in and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts it will quickly run off with you and be lost beyond recovery.

Begin - to begin is half the work let half still remain, again begin this and thou wilt have finished.

To read my book the virgin shy - May blush while Brutus standeth by: But when he's gone read through what's writ And never stain a cheek for it

Where a man can live he can also live well.

Come Caesar even by night - let stars delay, If thou but come thy folk will find it day.

Men exist for the sake of one another.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Socrates gave as his reason for declining an invitation to the court of Perdiccas "I have no wish to go down to my grave with ignominy," implying that he would accept no favor which he could not repay

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.

If all men cannot be brought to the same opinion on morals and religion it is at least worthwhile to give them good reasons for as much as they can be persuaded to accept

Look beneath the surface, let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee

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.

The height of farce it is I ween To be so perfumed and anointed And when one's appetite's most keen To have it thus most disappoint

Are you astonished Aulus that our friend Fabullinus is so frequently deceived? A good man has always something to learn in regard to fraud

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

Nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Life is not merely being alive but being well

He who prefers to give to Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow rather than to lend him the whole prefers to lose only the half

When I was ill you came to me Doctor and with great urgency A hundred students brought With you A most instructive case to view The hundred fingered me with hands Chill'd by the blasts of northern lands: Fever at outset had I none I have it Sir

There is no living with thee nor without thee

Rest lightly on her earth for she trod never heavily on thee

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.

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none less free that you were before.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

It is false to say that you are a vicious man Zoilus, you are not a vicious man you are vice itself

The universe is change, our life is what our thoughts make it

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

When the crowd of your admirers is shouting "Bravo! Hear hear!" it is not you Pomponius but your dinner that is eloquent

In all my writings my aim has been to spare sinners and assail sin

Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Everything is only for a day both that which remembers and that which is remembered

There is often a sin of omission as well as of commission

You ask me Linus what my field out at Nomentum is to yield? Well this it yields to me: the view my Linus has no sign of you

Death hangs over thee While thou still live while thou may do good

If you are distressed by anything external the pain is not due to the thing itself but by your own estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment

Confine yourself to the present.

No man is quick enough to enjoy life

Surrender your life serenely as serenely as the One who takes it from you

Such as are your habitual thoughts such also will be the character of your mind, for the soul is dyed by the thoughts

The present joys of life we doubly taste by looking back with pleasure on the past

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear

To be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice

If fame is only to come after death I am in no hurry for it

For all their compliments do verses pay? They mayn't yet these same poems make me gay

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.

Be content with what you are and wish not change, nor dread your last day nor long for it

Live with the gods. And he does so who constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to him.

With red hair a black face a cloven foot and blear eyes you show the world a prodigy Zoilus if you are an honest man

Knowledge the clue to life can give: Then wherefore hesitate to live

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

Be content to seem what you really are

Nothing in nature is evil.

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away

All of us are creatures of a day, the rememberer and the remembered alike

He does not write at all whose poems no man reads

Zoilus why do you delight in using a whole pound weight of gold for the setting of a stone and thus burying your poor sardonyx? Such rings are more suited to your legs the weight is too great for fingers