“Ask yourself this about each action: ‘How does this sit with me? Shall I regret it?’ In short while I am dead and all things are gone. What more do I want, if this present work is that of an intelligent and social being, sharing one law with god?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 76)
“When you have done good and another has benefited, why do you still look, as fools do, for a third thing besides—credit for good works, or a return?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 69)
“The happy life depends on very little. And do not think, just because you have given up hope of becoming a philosopher or a scientist, you should therefore despair of a free spirit, integrity, social conscience, obedience to god. It is wholly possible to become a ‘divine man’ without anybody’s recognition.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 68)
“Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 67)
“Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before this moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus, and live it as nature directs.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 66)
“Look back over the past—all those many changes of dynasties. And you can foresee the future too: it will be completely alike, incapable of deviating from the rhythm of the present. So for the study of human life forty years are as good as ten thousand: what more will you see?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 65)
“On fame. Look at their minds, the nature of their thought and what they seek or avoid. And see how, just as drifting sands constantly overlay the previous sand, so in our lives what we once did is very quickly covered over by subsequent layers.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 63)
“On death. Either dispersal, if we are atoms: or, if we are a unity, extinction or a change of home.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 63)
“Do not dream of possession of what you do not have: rather reflect on the greatest blessings in what you do have, and on their account remind yourself how much they would have been missed if they were not there. But at the same time you must be careful not to let your pleasure in them habituate you to dependency, to avoid distress if they are sometimes absent.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 62)
“Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will have forgotten you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 61)
“How many who once rose to fame are now consigned to oblivion: and how many who sang their fame are long disappeared.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 59)
“What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 57)
“Is it not strange that the architect and the doctor will show greater respect for the guiding principle of their craft than man will for his own guiding principle, which he was in common with the gods?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 53)
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 50)
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 46)
“Things of themselves cannot touch the soul at all. They have no entry to the soul, and cannot turn or move it. The soul alone turns and moves itself, making all externals presented to it cohere with the judgements it thinks worthy of itself.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 41)
“Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 41)
“Think always of the universe as one living creature, comprising one substance and one soul: how all is absorbed into this one consciousness; how a single impulse governs all its actions; how all things collaborate in all that happens; the very web and mesh of it all.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 31)
“No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 23)
“If you set yourself to your present task along the path of true reason, with all determination, vigour, and good will: if you admit no distraction, but keep your own divinity pure and standing strong, as if you had to surrender it right now; if you grapple this to you, expecting nothing, shirking nothing, but self-content with each present action taken in accordance with nature and a heroic truthfulness in all that you say and mean—then you will lead a good life. And nobody is able to stop you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 21)