“Ambition is tying your well-being to what other people do and say… sanity is tying it to your own actions.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows—the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues—and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready to hand.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 125)
“Continually review in your mind those whom a particular anger took to extremes, those who reached the greatest heights of glory or disaster or enmity or any other sort of fortune. Then stop and think: where is it all now? Smoke and ashes, a story told or even a story forgotten. Think how worthless all this striving is: how much wiser to use the material given to you to make yourself in all simplicity just, self-controlled, obedient to the gods. The pride that prides itself on freedom from pride is the hardest of all to bear.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 120)
“That in a short while you will be nobody and nowhere; and the same of all that you now see and all who are now alive. It is the nature of all things to change, to perish and be transformed, so that in succession different things can come to be.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 119)
“If it is not right, don’t do it: if it is not true, don’t say it.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 118)
“Look at causation stripped bare of its covers; look at the ulterior reference of any action. Consider, what is pain? What is pleasure? What is death? What is fame? Who is not himself the cause of his own unrest? Reflect how no one is hampered by any other; and that all is as thinking makes it so.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 117)
“There is nothing manly in being angry, but a gentle calm is both more human and therefore more virile. It is the gentle who have strength, sinew, and courage—not the indignant and complaining. The closer to control of emotion, the closer to power. Anger is as much a sign of weakness as is pain.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 111)
“Calculated honesty is a stiletto. There is nothing more degrading than the friendship of wolves: avoid that above all. The good, honest, kindly man has it in his eyes, and you cannot mistake him.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 99)
“No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 99)
“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. But you should still be kind to them. They are by nature your friends, and the gods too help them in various ways—dreams and divination—at least to the objects of their concern.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 88)
“The sinner sins against himself: the wrongdoer wrongs himself, by making himself morally bad.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 85)
“Do you want the praise of a man who curses himself three times an hour? Do you want to please a man who can’t please himself? Can a man please himself when he regrets almost everything he does?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 81)
“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)