Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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451. “If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common weal?”

— Marcus Aurelius

452. “From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend’s accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition.”

— Marcus Aurelius

453. “That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.”

— Marcus Aurelius

454. “The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”

— Marcus Aurelius

455. “Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.”

— Marcus Aurelius

456. “I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

457. “Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.”

— Marcus Aurelius

458. “Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.”

— Marcus Aurelius

459. “Remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment.”

— Marcus Aurelius

460. “It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible.”

— Marcus Aurelius

461. “It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.”

— Marcus Aurelius

462. “Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.”

— Marcus Aurelius

463. “Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements.”

— Marcus Aurelius

464. “How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear.”

— Marcus Aurelius

465. “All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.”

— Marcus Aurelius

466. “The passing minute is every man’s equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours.”

— Marcus Aurelius

467. “Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road.”

— Marcus Aurelius

468. “Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.”

— Marcus Aurelius

469. “Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish.”

— Marcus Aurelius

470. “That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

— Marcus Aurelius

471. “If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons.”

— Marcus Aurelius

472. “If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?”

— Marcus Aurelius

473. “Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

474. “The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhere.”

— Marcus Aurelius

475. “I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.”

— Marcus Aurelius

476. “Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.”

— Marcus Aurelius

477. “The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.”

— Marcus Aurelius

478. “Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”

— Marcus Aurelius

479. “The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!”

— Marcus Aurelius

480. “Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.”

— Marcus Aurelius

481. “Light may earth’s crumbling sand be laid on thee, that dogs may dig thy bones up easily.”

— Marcus Aurelius

482. “Be satisfied with your business, and learn to love what you were bred to.”

— Marcus Aurelius

483. “Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.”

— Marcus Aurelius

484. “Men exist for the sake of one another.”

— Marcus Aurelius

485. “In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.”

— Marcus Aurelius

486. “A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.”

— Marcus Aurelius

487. “Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place and better fortified than this, hath no man.”

— Marcus Aurelius

488. “If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong.”

— Marcus Aurelius

489. “Be mindful at all times of the following: the nature of the whole universe, the nature of the part that is me, the relation of the one to the other, the one so vast, the other so small.”

— Marcus Aurelius

490. “Hast thou reason? I have. Why then dost not thou use it? For if this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?”

— Marcus Aurelius

491. “We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.”

— Marcus Aurelius

492. “All that is from the gods is full of Providence.”

— Marcus Aurelius

493. “A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.”

— Marcus Aurelius

494. “Consider how many do not even know your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how those who now praise you will presently blame you.”

— Marcus Aurelius

495. “Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.”

— Marcus Aurelius

496. “That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.”

— Marcus Aurelius

497. “No one loses any other life than the one he now lives, nor does one live any other life than that which he will lose.”

— Marcus Aurelius

498. “Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?”

— Marcus Aurelius

499. “The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

500. “Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region.”

— Marcus Aurelius