Top 500 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”

— Marcus Aurelius

202. “A man should remove not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for then superfluous activity will not follow.”

— Marcus Aurelius

203. “You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others.”

— Marcus Aurelius

204. “The stone that is thrown into the air is none the worse for falling down, and none the better for going up.”

— Marcus Aurelius

205. “The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

206. “Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.”

— Marcus Aurelius

207. “The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.”

— Marcus Aurelius

208. “Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.”

— Marcus Aurelius

209. “Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.”

— Marcus Aurelius

210. “Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their mind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

211. “The act of dying is one of the acts of life.”

— Marcus Aurelius

212. “The world is a living being – one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

213. “Live not one’s life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.”

— Marcus Aurelius

214. “In reading and writing, you cannot lay down rules until you have learnt to obey them. Much more so in life.”

— Marcus Aurelius

215. “Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.”

— Marcus Aurelius

216. “Remember that all is opinion.”

— Marcus Aurelius

217. “Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.”

— Marcus Aurelius

218. “Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.”

— Marcus Aurelius

219. “Submit to the fate of your own free will.”

— Marcus Aurelius

220. “Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power: sincerity and dignity; industriousness; and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank; be temperate in manner and speech; carry yourself with authority.”

— Marcus Aurelius

221. “Where a man can live, he can also live well.”

— Marcus Aurelius

222. “Failing to understand the workings of one’s own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.”

— Marcus Aurelius

223. “Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.”

— Marcus Aurelius

224. “It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities .”

— Marcus Aurelius

225. “Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small – small as the corner of the earth in which we live it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

226. “The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.”

— Marcus Aurelius

227. “Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

228. “Without a purpose, nothing should be done.”

— Marcus Aurelius

229. “People find pressure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.”

— Marcus Aurelius

230. “Change your attitude to the things that bother you and you will be aware of them.”

— Marcus Aurelius

231. “Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.”

— Marcus Aurelius

232. “Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

233. “The wrongdoer is often the person who left something undone, rather than the person who has done something.”

— Marcus Aurelius

234. “Anger cannot be dishonest.”

— Marcus Aurelius

235. “How soon will time cover all things.”

— Marcus Aurelius

236. “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.”

— Marcus Aurelius

237. “Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.”

— Marcus Aurelius

238. “There is a limit circumscribed to your time – if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return.”

— Marcus Aurelius

239. “Welcome every experience the looms of fate may weave for you...”

— Marcus Aurelius

240. “From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason.”

— Marcus Aurelius

241. “Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.”

— Marcus Aurelius

242. “Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.”

— Marcus Aurelius

243. “Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”

— Marcus Aurelius

244. “Withdraw to the untroubled quietude deep within the soul, and refresh yourself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

245. “Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.”

— Marcus Aurelius

246. “Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

247. “Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and temperance be extinguished before thy death?”

— Marcus Aurelius

248. “Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.”

— Marcus Aurelius

249. “The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”

— Marcus Aurelius

250. “We are born for cooperation, as are the feet, the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and lower jaws.”

— Marcus Aurelius