Marcus Aurelius

Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

Now that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse?

But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure,--all these things equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse.

What is the nature of all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapory fame; how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they…

And reverence of the daemon consists in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness, and dissatisfaction with what comes from gods and men.

Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

The soul of man does violence to itself, first of all, when it becomes an abscess, and, as it were, a tumor on the universe, so far as it can.

For to be vexed at anything which happens is a separation of ourselves from nature, in some part of which the natures of all other things are contained.

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of…

And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.

For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

We must make haste, then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.

Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; get out.

Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility.

For thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these,--What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving, and whatever else of the…

For it is only what belongs to himself that he makes the matter for his activity; and he constantly thinks of that which is allotted to himself out of the sum total of things, and he makes his own acts fair, and he is persuaded that his…

Accordingly, he does not value at all the praise which comes from such men, since they are not even satisfied with themselves.

In the mind of one who is chastened and purified thou wilt find no corrupt matter, nor impurity, nor any sore skinned over.

Nor is his life incomplete when fate overtakes him, as one may say of an actor who leaves the stage before ending and finishing the play.

Throwing away then all things, hold to these only which are few; and besides, bear in mind that every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.

Short then is the time which every man lives; and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who…

As physicians have always their instruments and knives ready for cases which suddenly require their skill, so do thou have principles ready for the understanding of things divine and human, and for doing everything, even the smallest, with…

For neither wilt thou do anything well which pertains to man without at the same time having a reference to things divine; nor the contrary.

Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensation, to the soul appetites, to the intelligence principles.

All that is from the gods is full of providence.