Roman Emperor (121-180)
Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this short speech to yourself: I am getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humour for going about that I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and keep warm beneath the counterpane? Well! but this is a comfortable way of living.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
My being consists of matter and form, that is, of soul and body; annihilation will reach neither of them, for they were never produced out of nothing. The consequence is, that every part of me will serve to make something in the world; and this again will change into another part through an infinite succession of change. This constant method of alteration gave me my being, and my father before me, and so on to eternity backward: for I think I may speak thus, even though the world be confined within certain determinate periods.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
To expect an impossibility is madness.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
You will quickly be reduced to ashes and skeleton. And it may be you will have a name left you, and it may be not. And what is a name? Nothing but sound and echo.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Receive without conceit, release without struggle.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Pray look upon the plants and birds, the ants, spiders, and bees, and you will see them all exerting their nature, and busy in their station. Pray, shall not a man act like a man?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations