Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.

Be modest and simple in your deportment, and treat with indifference whatever lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race; obey God.

Consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events that go before are soon covered by those that come after.

Death and pain are not frightening, it's the fear of pain and death we need to fear. Which is why we praise the poet who wrote, 'Death is not fearful, but dying like a coward is.'

Do as Socrates did, never replying to the question of where he was from with, 'I am Athenian,' or 'I am from Corinth,' but always, 'I am a citizen of the world.'

Either you're going to be depressed when your wish is not realized or foolishly pleased with yourself if it is, overjoyed for the wrong reasons.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.

He (God) remembers that we are but shadows and dust, therefore what we do in this life echoes in eternity.

He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon.

Never get into family fights over material things; give them up willingly, and your moral standing will increase in proportion.

No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.

Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: they are hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt.