Top 500 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else...”

— Marcus Aurelius

402. “Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?”

— Marcus Aurelius

403. “Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

404. “But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.”

— Marcus Aurelius

405. “The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

406. “And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.”

— Marcus Aurelius

407. “Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.”

— Marcus Aurelius

408. “Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic.”

— Marcus Aurelius

409. “To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead – and to realize that no expense should be grudged for this purpose.”

— Marcus Aurelius

410. “Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind. Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived.”

— Marcus Aurelius

411. “Why should any of these things that happen externally distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing: cease roving to and fro.”

— Marcus Aurelius

412. “Consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man’s life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

414. “Death – a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.”

— Marcus Aurelius

415. “Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.”

— Marcus Aurelius

416. “Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.”

— Marcus Aurelius

417. “Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.”

— Marcus Aurelius

418. “It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.”

— Marcus Aurelius

419. “What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.”

— Marcus Aurelius

420. “All is Ephemeral, fame and the famous as well.”

— Marcus Aurelius

421. “In death, Alexander of Macedon’s end differed no whit from his stable-boy’s. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.”

— Marcus Aurelius

422. “The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.”

— Marcus Aurelius

423. “What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.”

— Marcus Aurelius

424. “They know not how many things are signified by the words stealing, sowing, buying, keeping quiet, seeing what ought to be done; for this is not effected by the eyes, but by another kind of vision.”

— Marcus Aurelius

425. “Short is the little time which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.”

— Marcus Aurelius

426. “It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.”

— Marcus Aurelius

427. “My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature – the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.”

— Marcus Aurelius

428. “To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt; take back what thou wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently and well pleased with her.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

431. “Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

432. “All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.”

— Marcus Aurelius

433. “The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

435. “Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.”

— Marcus Aurelius

436. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

438. “Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.”

— Marcus Aurelius

439. “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

440. “Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.”

— Marcus Aurelius

441. “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

442. “Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.”

— Marcus Aurelius

443. “You exist but as a part inherent in a greater whole. Do not live as though you had a thousand years before you. The common due impends; while you live, and while you may, be good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

444. “Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.”

— Marcus Aurelius

445. “Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.”

— Marcus Aurelius

446. “The true joy of humankind is in doing that which is most proper to our nature; and the first property of people is to be kindly affected towards them that are of one kind with ourselves.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

448. “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

449. “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

450. “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