Marcus Aurelius quotes staple for those who want to learn about Stoicism or even simply want to pursue inner peace. In case you don’t know, Marcus Aurelius is one of the most respected emperors in ancient Rome. All the quotes by Marcus Aurelius you find on the internet, including in this writing, prove that he is not just an emperor but also an intellectual.
Marcus Aurelius quotes were born from the most extraordinary mind of the last emperor of the Five Good Emperors in ancient Rome. He is most known for his rational leadership and his keen interest in the idea of Stoicism. Meditations book is his only main work which actually was never meant to be published.
Meditations are not just one of the best books in human history, but it’s also perhaps one of a kind. As the name implies, the book teaches about self-control, humility, strength, self-actualization, and personal ethics. If you aren’t a fan of reading a book but are curious about its content, consider looking for some Marcus Aurelius meditations quotes. But you don’t need to go further as you are already in the right place where you can find the said pearls of wisdom.
The Marcus Aurelius quotes meditations are a simple form of Stoicism teaching that can teach you to restrain yourself from doing things that can harm your inner calm. Researchers from Birkbeck’s Affective and Cognitive Neuroscience lab even found that cognitive training that is based on Stoicism can lessen emotional sensitivity in people with depression and anxiety.
Practicing the principles of Stoicism does not have to be complicated. Reading one Marcus Aurelius quote a day is more than enough to be a gentle reminder that you need to take care of your inner peace rather than minding something that will ruin it. Also, there are more benefits you can attain, such as follows:
- You won’t’ care about what people think – This is the main benefit of implementing Stoicism in everyday life since most people often being overly anxious about what people think about them.
- No more waste time – Stoic principles taught you to live in the present rather than worrying about what comes in the future.
- You know what you can and can’t control – Stoicism reminds you of what you are capable of handling and disregarding things you can’t control.
- You’ll no longer be anxious – People shouldn’t be overly worried about the future as it doesn’t exist yet. The present is what you need to focus on.
Inspirational Marcus Aurelius Quotes
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” Marcus Aurelius
“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.” Marcus Aurelius
“A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.” Marcus Aurelius
“Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”
“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question, what fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize.” Marcus Aurelius
Loss is nothing else but change and change is nature’s delight” Marcus Aurelius
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius
“Look within. Within is the fountain of goo, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.” Marcus Aurelius
“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible.” Marcus Aurelius
“Think of yourself as dead. you have lived your life. Now, take what’s left, and live it properly.” Marcus Aurelius
“Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully you will find this to be so.” Marcus Aurelius
“My true self is free, it cannot be contained.” Marcus Aurelius
“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” Marcus Aurelius
“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.” Marcus Aurelius
“Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.” Marcus Aurelius
“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.” Marcus Aurelius
“You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.” Marcus Aurelius
“A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.” Marcus Aurelius
“The best answer to anger is silence.” Marcus Aurelius
“We live only now. Everything else is either passed or is unknown.” Marcus Aurelius
“Confine yourself to the present” Marcus Aurelius
“Each day provides it’s own gifts.” Marcus Aurelius
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury disappears.” Marcus Aurelius
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.” Marcus Aurelius
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. Marcus Aurelius
“Man should fear never beginning to live.” Marcus Aurelius
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.” Marcus Aurelius
“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.” Marcus Aurelius
“Do not try to be on the side of the majority, but live according to your inner laws.” Marcus Aurelius
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius
“People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.”
“Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense.”
“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.”
“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”
“To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness.”
“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.” Marcus Aurelius
Deep Marcus Aurelius Quotes
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.
Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.
Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful – and hence neither good nor bad.
You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.
Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away then, when you choose, your opinion, and like a mariner who has rounded the headland, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.
The flaw which is hidden is deemed greater than it is.
Since the greatest part of what we say and do is unnecessary, dispensing with such activities affords a man more leisure and less uneasiness.
Passions stem from frustrated desire.
Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.
To the rational animal the same act is at once according to nature and according to reason.
Whatever man you meet with, immediately say to yourself: “What opinions has this man about good and bad?”
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
To have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more will you see?
A vine cannot behave olively, nor an olive tree vinely – it is impossible, inconceivable. No more can a human being wholly efface his native disposition.
Glory paid to our ashes comes too late.
Marcus Aurelius’ Quotes for a Peace of Mind
“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.”
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.”
“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.”
“No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.”
“Wait for death with a cheerful mind. For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature. ”
“The mind maintains its own tranquillity by retiring into itself, and the ruling faculty is not made worse. But the parts that are harmed by pain, let them, if they can, give their opinion about it. ”
“If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now. ”
“A limit of time is fixed for you, which if you do not use for clearing away the clouds from your mind, it will go and you will go, and it will never return. ”
“The mind that is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and repel every attack. ”
“Take me and cast me where you will; for there I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can feel and act conformably to its proper constitution. ”
Life would never be manageable if you never stop thinking about something you can’t control. Try to live in the present as it is the only chance where you can truly make some improvements in your life. Use some best Marcus Aurelius quotes as a reminder that there is nothing you should be worried about.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Life
Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What’s new here? What’s so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There’s nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It’s the same, whether you’ve examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.
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.
Where a man can live, he can also live well.
Just ask whether they put their self-interest in externals or in moral choice. If it’s in externals, you cannot call them friends, any more than you can call them trustworthy, consistent, courageous or free.
What is the goal of virtue, after all, except a life that flows smoothly?
You will give yourself relief, if you do every act of your life as if it were the last.
Be cheerful also, and do not seek external help or the tranquillity that others give. A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at.
Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
The history of your life is now complete and your service is ended: and how many beautiful things you have seen; and how many pleasures and pains you have despised; and how many things called honorable you have spurned; and to how many ill-minded folks you have shown a kind disposition.
The art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets that are sudden and unexpected.
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
For where else is friendship found if not with fairness, reliability and respect for virtue only?
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Leadership
Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the emerald (or the gold or the purple) were always saying “Whatever any one does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.”
When a guide meets up with someone who is lost, ordinarily his reaction is to direct him on the right path, not mock or malign him, then turn on his heel and walk away. As for you, lead someone to the truth and you will find that he can follow. But as long as you don’t point it out to him, don’t make fun of him; be aware of what you need to work on instead.
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Click to tweet
‘Well, what will my profession in the community be?’ Whatever position you are equipped to fill, so long as you preserve the man of trust and integrity.
Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.
Have I done something for the common good? Then I share in the benefits. To stay centered on that. Not to give up.
To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind himself.
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
If you have been placed in a position above others, are you automatically going to behave like a despot? Remember who you are and whom you govern – that they are kinsmen, brothers by nature, fellow descendants of Zeus.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Tolerance and Forgiveness
It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
With what are you discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to your mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily.
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
If they’ve injured you, then they’re the ones who suffer for it. But have they?
Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what’s affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.
Consider that you also do many things wrong, and that you are a man like others; and even if you do abstain from certain faults, still you have the disposition to commit them, though either through cowardice, or concern about reputation, or some such mean motive, you abstain from such faults.
To be angry at something means you’ve forgotten: That everything that happens is natural. That the responsibility is theirs, not yours.
No time for reading. For controlling your arrogance, yes. For overcoming pain and pleasure, yes. For outgrowing ambition, yes. For not feeling anger at stupid and unpleasant people – even for caring about them – for that, yes.
I do what is mine to do; the rest doesn’t disturb me. The rest is inanimate, or has no logos, or it wanders at random and has lost the road.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Philosophy
No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.
“It’s unfortunate that this has happened”. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it — not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.
People who are physically ill are unhappy with a doctor who doesn’t give them advice, because they think he has given up on them. Shouldn’t we feel the same towards a philosopher – and assume that he has given up hope of our ever becoming rational – if he will no longer tell us what we need (but may not like) to hear?
My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application – not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech – and learn them so well that words become works.
It stares you in the face. No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.
This presumption that you possess knowledge of any use has to be dropped before you approach philosophy – just as if we were enrolling in a school of music or mathematics.
What then can guide a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daimon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy.
My city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome; but so far as I am a man, it is the world.
If you commit to philosophy, be prepared at once to be laughed at and made the butt of many snide remarks.
Reflect on the other social roles you play. If you are a council member, consider what a council member should do. If you are young, what does being young mean, if you are old, what does age imply, if you are a father, what does fatherhood entail? Each of our titles, when reflected upon, suggests the acts appropriate to it.
This, then, is the beginning of philosophy – an awareness of one’s own mental fitness.
Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Love, Kindness, Friends, Doing Good
Consider if you have behaved to all in such a way that this way be said of you: Never has he wronged a man in deed or word.
People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat.
[Treat] unenlightened souls with sympathy and indulgence, remembering that they are ignorant or mistaken about what’s most important. Never be harsh, remember Plato’s dictum: ‘Every soul is deprived of the truth against its will.’
Accustom yourself to attend carefully to what is said by another, and as much as it is possible, try to inhabit the speaker’s mind.
One thing here is worth a great deal: to pass your life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men.
Do not be whirled about, but in every movement have respect to justice, and on the occasion of every impression maintain the faculty of comprehension or understanding.
When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic – what defines a human being — is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep. And it’s the characteristic activity that’s the more natural one – more innate and more satisfying.
Never value anything as profitable that compels you to break your promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains.
We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
What is your art? To be good. And how is this accomplished well except by general principles, some about the nature of the universe, and others about the proper constitution of man?
Marcus Aurelius’ Quotes about Stoicism
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?
Confine yourself to the present
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Epithets for yourself: upright, modest, straightforward, sane, cooperative, disinterested… Maintain your claim to these epithets — without caring if others apply them to you or not.
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not ‘This is misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’
Interested in studying Stoicism? You don’t need to directly bring yourself to the big picture of this notion. Simply spare some time to read on the collection of quotes Marcus Aurelius, and you will understand what this philosophical idea is about.
