Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180)

Quotes

• Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

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

• 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.

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

• Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.

• 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.

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

• How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life.

• Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.

• Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

• How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

• 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.

• Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.

• A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - that is myself.

• To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

• To stand up -- or be setup?

• A man does not sin by commission only, but often by ommission.

• A candour affected is a dagger concealed.

• You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

• By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.