Marcus Aurelius Quotes
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251. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

253. “A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

255. “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.”

— Marcus Aurelius

256. “All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.”

— Marcus Aurelius

257. “In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination...”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

259. “This is the mark of a perfect character – to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.”

— Marcus Aurelius

260. “Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

262. “Neither worse then or better is a thing made by being praised.”

— Marcus Aurelius

263. “Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.”

— Marcus Aurelius

264. “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

265. “I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass.”

— Marcus Aurelius

266. “Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.”

— Marcus Aurelius

267. “Man is born for deeds of kindness.”

— Marcus Aurelius

268. “A good disposition is invincible, if it be genuine.”

— Marcus Aurelius

269. “To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”

— Marcus Aurelius

270. “Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.”

— Marcus Aurelius

271. “Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.”

— Marcus Aurelius

272. “It is the duty of men to love even those who injure them.”

— Marcus Aurelius

273. “Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy.”

— Marcus Aurelius

274. “You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It’s as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

276. “Everything is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.”

— Marcus Aurelius

277. “Life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.”

— Marcus Aurelius

278. “Unhappy am I because this has happened to me.- Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.”

— Marcus Aurelius

279. “When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

280. “Once you have done a man a service, what more reward would you have? Is it not enough to have obeyed the laws of your own nature, without expecting to be paid for it?”

— Marcus Aurelius

281. “No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.”

— Marcus Aurelius

282. “He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.”

— Marcus Aurelius

283. “Live with the gods. And he does so who constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to him.”

— Marcus Aurelius

284. “Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

285. “What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.”

— Marcus Aurelius

286. “Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

287. “All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.”

— Marcus Aurelius

288. “Search men’s governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.”

— Marcus Aurelius

289. “Because your own strength is unequal to a task, do not assume it is beyond the powers of man.”

— Marcus Aurelius

290. “You are making an inopportune rejection of what Nature has given you today, if all your mind is set on what men will say of you tomorrow.”

— Marcus Aurelius

291. “In an expression of true gratitude, sadness is conspicuous only by its absence.”

— Marcus Aurelius

292. “Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.”

— Marcus Aurelius

293. “In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases.”

— Marcus Aurelius

294. “Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.”

— Marcus Aurelius

295. “Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging.”

— Marcus Aurelius

296. “When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.”

— Marcus Aurelius

297. “At day’s first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that “I am rising for the work of man.””

— Marcus Aurelius

298. “If it’s time for you to go, leave willingly – as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor.”

— Marcus Aurelius

299. “Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.”

— Marcus Aurelius

300. “Death, like birth, is one of nature’s mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.”

— Marcus Aurelius