Quotes by Marcus Aurelius

A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.

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.

…praise does not make anything better or worse.

All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral—both memory and the object of memory. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you cant control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

Vex not thy spirit at the course of things they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.

Here is a rule to remember when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not This is a misfortune but To bear this worthily is good fortune.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.

If thou workest at that which is before thee ... expecting nothing fearing nothing but satisfied with thy present activity according to Nature and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure.

It is not death that a man should fear he should fear never beginning to live.

Why do we shrink from change? What can come into being save by change?

There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay and this is common to the entire universe.

A man should remove not only unnecessary acts but also unnecessary thoughts for then superfluous activity will not follow.

Time is like a river of fleeting events and its current is strong as soon as something comes into sight it is swept past us and something else takes its place and that too will be swept away.

Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.

If you are distressed by anything external the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.