Top 500 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “A rational nature admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

403. “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

404. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

406. “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

407. “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

408. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

410. “This is the chief thing: be not perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal.”

— Marcus Aurelius

411. “Remember this-that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

414. “An angry look on the face is wholly against nature. If it be assumed frequently, beauty begins to perish, and in the end is quenched beyond rekindling.”

— Marcus Aurelius

415. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

418. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

420. “Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul?”

— Marcus Aurelius

421. “In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

424. “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

425. “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

426. “Let every action aim solely at the common good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

427. “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

428. “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

Featured in: Strong Quotes

429. “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

430. “Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one.”

— Marcus Aurelius

431. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

433. “It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care not about it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

434. “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

435. “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

436. “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

437. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

439. “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

440. “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

441. “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

442. “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

443. “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

444. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

446. “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

447. “A lucky chance is constant in nothing but inconstancy.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

449. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius