Marcus Aurelius

“Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich. (Hays translation)”

“From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.”

“Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.”

“Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. (Hays translation)”

“Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. (Hays translation)”

“He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.”

“Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.”

“γεγόναμεν γὰρ πρὸς συνεργίαν ὡς πόδες, ὡς χεῖρες, ὡς βλέφαρα, ὡς οἱ στοῖχοι τῶν ἄνω καὶ κάτω ὀδόντων. τὸ οὖν ἀντιπράσσειν ἀλλήλοις παρὰ φύσιν.”

“Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)”

“What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it. (Hays translation)”

“There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return. (Hays translation)”

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. (Hays translation)”

“Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. (Hays translation)”

“You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. (Hays translation)”

“Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.”

“This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...”

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. (Hays translation)”

“Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.”

“The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”

“Remember that all is opinion.”

“No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.”

“Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.”

“Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. (Hays translation)”

“As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.”

“Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.”

“...undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. (Hays translation)”

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

“For we carry our fate with us — and it carries us. (Hays translation)”

“Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.”

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

“Whatever is beautiful at all is beautiful in itself. Its beauty ends there, and praise has no part in it.”

“Do every deed, speak every word, think every thought in the knowledge that you may end your days any moment.”

“Waste not what remains of life in consideration about others, when it makes not for the common good.”

“Order not your life as though you had ten thousand years to live. Fate hangs over you. While you live, while yet you may, be good.”

“Let no action be done at random, nor otherwise than in complete accordance with the principles involved.”