Roman Emperor (121-180)
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Do not think that what is hard for thee to master is impossible for man; but if a thing is possible and proper to man, deem it attainable by thee.
MARCUS AURELIUS
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The universe is flux, life is opinion.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
First thing every morning tell yourself: today I am going to meet a busybody, an ingrate, a bully, a liar, a schemer, and a boor. Ignorance of good and evil has made them what they are. But I know that the good is by nature beautiful and the bad ugly, and I know that these wrong-doers are by nature my brothers, not by blood or breeding, but by being similarly endowed with reason and sharing in the divine. None of them can harm me, for none can force me to do wrong against my will, and I cannot be angry with a brother or resent him, for we were born into this world to work together like the feet, hands, eyelids, and upper and lower rows of teeth. To work against one another is contrary to nature, and what could be more like working against someone than resenting or abandoning him?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The gods gave me a father who ruled over me and rid me of any trace of arrogance and showed me that one can live in a palace without bodyguards, extravagant attire, chandeliers, statues, and other luxuries. He taught me that it is possible to live instead pretty much in the manner of a private citizen without losing any of the dignity and authority a ruler must possess to discharge his imperial duties effectively.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
When the sovereign spirit within us is true to nature, it stands poised and ready to adjust to every change in circumstances and to seize each new opportunity. It doesn't approach an object with prejudice or preconception, but handles each thing dispassionately before embracing it and, if necessary, finds advantage in what opposes it. It is like fire in this regard. Whereas a feeble flame might suffocate under a pile of dry sticks, a robust fire consumes everything it touches. The more objects of any kind heaped on it, the higher it rises, the hotter it burns.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Thanks to the gods I didn't spend much time while growing up with my grandfather's mistress and preserved the flower of my youth, waiting for the proper time to demonstrate my virility.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Not even the vicissitudes of fortune are contrary to nature or to the providential ordering of the universe. It all flows from the gods, who determine what is needed for the welfare of the whole universe, of which you are a part.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Be thou erect, or be made erect.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
What am I but a little flesh, a little breath, and the thinking part that rules the whole?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
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.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The gods sustain and guide all their works.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations