“The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Mistakes
“Other people’s mistakes? Leave them to their makers.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Ambition
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do… sanity means tying it to your own actions.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Harm
“Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Life
“Ask yourself at every moment: is this necessary?”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Life
“…life is a war and a journey in a foreign land, and afterwards oblivion.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Virtue
“And then you might see what the life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Virtue
“This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Truth
“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Being Good
“While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Tranquility of Mind
“The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Obstacles
“You have to assemble your life yourself … if you accept the obstacle and work with what you’re given, an alternative will present itself—another piece of what you’re trying to assemble.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Desire
“Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Tranquility
“Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?'”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Living in the Moment
“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.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Remaining calm
“In reacting to such people, we must never allow our own principles to be violated. ”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Discipline
“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Anger
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Help
“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Obstacles
“Our actions may be impeded … but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Endurance
“If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Harm
“It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you — inside or out.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Tranquility
“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Virtue
“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Insults
“”In other cases , we will find that those insulting us have deeply flawed characters . Such people , says Marcus , rather than deserving our anger , deserve our pity”
(From “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” by William Irvine.)
Marcus Aurelius on Revenge
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Worries
“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
Marcus Aurelius on Equanimity
“When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on the Soul
“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Endurance
“Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius on Thought
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
~ Marcus Aurelius