Top 500 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “Why do we shrink from change? What can come into being save by change?”

— Marcus Aurelius

402. “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

403. “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

404. “Give full attention and devotion to each act.”

— Marcus Aurelius

405. “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

406. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

411. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

413. “Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives us.”

— Marcus Aurelius

414. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

417. “Nothing is evil which is according to nature.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

420. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

423. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

425. “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

426. “There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe.”

— Marcus Aurelius

427. “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

428. “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

429. “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

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

— Marcus Aurelius

431. “Consider frequently the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another. For things are somehow implicated with one another, and all in a way friendly to one another.”

— Marcus Aurelius

432. “Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.”

— Marcus Aurelius

433. “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

434. “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

435. “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

436. “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

437. “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

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. “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

441. “Not even the vicissitudes of fortune are contrary to nature or to the providential ordering of the universe. It all flows from the gods, who determine what is needed for the welfare of the whole universe, of which you are a part.”

— Marcus Aurelius

442. “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

443. “A rational nature admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

444. “I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

447. “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

448. “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

449. “Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius