Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Marcus Aurelius, born on April 26, 121 AD, in Rome, was a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD and is best known today as one of the most prominent Stoic philosophers. Stoicism, a school of philosophy that emphasizes rationality, self-control, and virtue as the path to a fulfilling life, greatly influenced his reign and personal life.

From a young age, Marcus was drawn to philosophy, particularly the teachings of Stoicism, which were introduced to him by his mentors. As Emperor, he faced numerous challenges, including wars, plagues, and political unrest, yet he remained steadfast in his Stoic beliefs. His dedication to Stoicism is most evident in his personal writings, known as Meditations. This collection of thoughts and reflections, written in Greek while on military campaigns, serves as a guide to applying Stoic principles in daily life.

• "You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
  
  

• "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
  
  

• "When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."
  
  

• "It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
  
  

• "The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."
  
  

• "The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."
  
  

• "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
  
  

• "If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it."
  
  

• "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
  
  

• "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."
  
  

• "The best way to avenge yourself is to not be like that."
  
  

• "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
  
  

• "Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."
  
  

• "Our life is what our thoughts make it."
  
  

• "You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say."
  
  

• "How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."
  
  

• "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."
  
  

• "Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look."
  
  

• "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
  
  

• "Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
  
  

• "Do every act of your life as though it were the last act of your life."
  
  

• "The best revenge is not to be like your enemy."
  
  

• "Confine yourself to the present."
  
  

• "A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions."
  
  

• "He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."
  
  

• "To live happily is an inward power of the soul."
  
  

• "Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil."
  
  

• "Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life."
  
  

• "The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."
  
  

• "Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it."
  
  

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

• "Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."
  
  

• "Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."
  
  

• "What we do now echoes in eternity."
  
  

• "To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions."
  
  

• "If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed."
  
  

• "You always own the option of having no opinion."
  
  

• "Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense."
  
  

• "Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live."
  
  

• "A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires."