Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.

My mind. What is it? What am I making of it? What am I using it for? Is it empty of thought? Isolated and torn loose from those around it? Melted into flesh and blended with it, so that it shares its urges?

But by all means bear this in mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not even your names will be left behind.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul

If worldly things "be but as a dream, the thought is not far off that there may be an awakening to what is real. When he speaks of death as a necessary change, and points out that nothing useful and profitable can be brought about without change, did he perhaps think of the change in a corn of wheat, which is not quickened except it die? Nature's marvellous power of recreating out of Corruption is surely not confined to bodily things.

In order to live in accord with nature, it is necessary to know what nature is; and to this end a threefold division of philosophy is made—into Physics, dealing with the universe and its laws, the problems of divine government and teleology; Logic, which trains the mind to discern true from false; and Ethics, which applies the knowledge thus gained and tested to practical life.

If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you should be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you speak, you will live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.

Don't imagine that something is good for you if, in pursuing it, you must break a promise, harm anyone else, lose self-respect, act hypocritically, or hide in shame.

A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you're in the same room with him, you know it. But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back. False friendship is the worst. Avoid it at all costs. If you're honest and straightforward and mean well, it should show in your eyes. It should be unmistakable.

This is not a misfortune but that to bear it like a brave man is good fortune.

And as for those parts that came from the earth, they shall return unto the earth again; and those that came from heaven, they also shall return unto those heavenly places. Whether it be a mere dissolution and unbinding of the manifold intricacies and entanglements of the confused atoms; or some such dispersion of the simple and incorruptible elements...