Top 500 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole.”

— Marcus Aurelius

202. “This is moral perfection: to live each day as though it were the last; to be tranquil, sincere, yet not indifferent to one’s fate.”

— Marcus Aurelius

203. “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

204. “A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

207. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

209. “If it’s in your control, why do you do it? If it’s in someone else’s control, then who are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way. Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage.”

— Marcus Aurelius

210. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

213. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

218. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

224. “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

225. “Remember that all is opinion.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

229. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

232. “Anger cannot be dishonest.”

— Marcus Aurelius

233. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

237. “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

238. “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

239. “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

240. “While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

242. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

244. “How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.”

— Marcus Aurelius

245. “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

246. “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

247. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

250. “When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic-what defines a human being-is to work with others.”

— Marcus Aurelius