Marcus Aurelius on Stoicism Quotes

"The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing. IX, 16"

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

"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."

"Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already."

"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."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."

"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?"

"“Those who have forgotten where the road leads.” “They are at odds with what is all around them”—the all-directing logos. And “they find alien what they meet with every day.” (Hays translation) IV, 46"

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

"If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured."

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing."

"Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions."

"External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now."

"That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bee."

"Kindness is invincible, but only when it's sincere, with no hypocrisy or faking."

"What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee."

"To live even one day the right way is more than enough."

"The soul is dyed by the color of its thoughts."

"Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour."

"The mind that is free from passion is a very citadel, for a man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable."

"Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life."

"To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing—here is perfection of character."

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

"Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so."

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking."

"Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish."

"Whatever anyone does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this: whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color."

"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."

"Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly... None of them can hurt me."

"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."