Marcus Aurelius

[jagd messer]

The Emperor-Philosopher: Marcus Aurelius

Few Quotes
Marcus Aurelius Nationality: Roman Type: Soldier Born: 121 Died: 180




"Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil." Marcus Aurelius.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid. --Marcus Aurelius.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid. - M. Aurelius.

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be. Marcus Aurelius.

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

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius.

Each day provides its own gifts. Marcus Aurelius.

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. Marcus Aurelius.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise. Marcus Aurelius.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life. Marcus Aurelius.

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

Men exist for the sake of one another. Marcus Aurelius.

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. Marcus Aurelius.

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

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

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius.

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

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. Marcus Aurelius.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. Marcus Aurelius.

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. Marcus Aurelius.

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

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely. Marcus Aurelius.

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

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

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. Marcus Aurelius.

The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer. Marcus Aurelius.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature. Marcus Aurelius.

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

Do every act of your life as if it were your last. Marcus Aurelius.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks. Marcus Aurelius.

Poverty is the mother of crime. Marcus Aurelius.

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

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius.

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

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle. Marcus Aurelius.

Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil. Marcus Aurelius.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing. Marcus Aurelius.

Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference. IV, 15. Marcus Aurelius.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy. IV, 18. Marcus Aurelius.

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say. IV, 41.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. IV, 43. Marcus Aurelius.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it. IV, 48. Marcus Aurelius.

Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee? V, 28. Marcus Aurelius.

Take heed not to be transformed into a Caesar, not to be dipped in the purple dye, for it does happen. Keep yourself therefore, simple, good, pure, grave, unaffected, the friend of justice, religious, kind, affectionate, strong for your proper work. Wrestle to be the man philosophy wished to make you. Reverence the gods, save men. Life is brief; there is but one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighborly acts. VI, 30. Marcus Aurelius.

How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it ? VI, 56. Marcus Aurelius.

Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more sutiable? VII, 57. Marcus Aurelius.

Very little is needed to make a happy life. VII, 67 Marcus Aurelius.

You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before. VIII, 4 Marcus Aurelius.

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something. IX, 5 Marcus Aurelius.

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point. VIII, 21.
All things are the same,—familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried. IX, 14. Marcus Aurelius.

Wilt thou then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee? Wilt thou never enjoy an affectionate and contented disposition? Wilt thou never be full and without a want of any kind, longing for nothing more, nor desiring anything, either animate of inanimate, for the enjoyment of pleasures? nor yet desiring time wherein thou shalt have longer enjoyment, or place, or pleasant climate, or society of men with whom thou mayst live in harmony? but wilt thou be satisfied with thy present condition, and pleased with all that is around thee, and wilt thou convince thyself that thou hast everything and that it comes from the gods, that everything is well for thee, and will be well whatever shall please them, and whatever they shall give for the conservation of the perfect living being, the good and just and beautiful, which generates and holds together all things, and contains and embraces all things which are dissolved for the production of other like things? Wilt thou never be such that thou shalt so dwell in community with gods and men as neither to find fault with them at all, nor to be condemned by them? X, 1. Marcus Aurelius.

A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament. X, 34. Marcus Aurelius.

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and a wise man, will there not be at least some one to say to himself, Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns us.—This is what is said of a good man. But in our own case how many other things are there for which there are many who wish to get rid of us. X, 36. Marcus Aurelius.

Human life! Its duration is momentary, its substance in perpetual flux, its senses dim, its physical organism perishable, its conscience a vortex, its destiny dark, its repute uncertain – in fact, the material elements in a rolling stream, the spiritual elements dreams and vapour, life is a war and a sojourning in a far country, fame oblivion. What can see through us? One thing and only one thing Philosophy, and that means keeping the spirit within us unspoiled and undishonoured, not giving away to pleasure or pain, never acting unthinkingly or deceitfully or insincerely, and never being dependent on the moral support of others. It also means taking what comes contentedly as all part of the process to which we owe our being; and above all, it means facing death calmly – taking it simply as a dissolution of the atoms of which every living organism is composed. Their perpetual transformation does not hurt the atoms, so why should one mind the whole organism being transformed and dissolved? It is a law of nature, and Natural law can never be wrong. Marcus Aurelius.

105+ Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Life & Stoicism
24 X 2023.

[Ray Allan]

Probably the best Roman emperor, him and Trajan.