Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calm, and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Quotes

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.
There is a stream of things entering into being, and time is a raging torment; for no sooner does each thing enter our sight than it has been swept away, and another is passing in it's place, and that too will be swept away.
Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
One whose chief regard is for his own mind, and for the divinity within him and the service of its goodness, will strike no poses, utter no complaints, and crave neither for solitude nor yet for a crowd. Best of all, his life will be free from continual pursuing and avoiding.
Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.
All of us are working together for the same end; some of us knowingly and purposefully, others unconsciously.
It is a sin to persue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as a evil.
The sinners sins against himself; the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action.
A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.
Waste no more time arguing what a god man should be. Be one.
Virtue they will but abuse, and taunt her with bitter revilling.
All the blessings which you pray to obtain hereafter could be yours today, if you did not deny them to yourself.
Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity. All things are petty, easily changed, and vanishing away.
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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

Anger
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
All is ephemeral--fame and the famous as well.
Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.