Marcus Aurelius on Wisdom Quotes

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

"To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference."

"Keep a good heart. That also is a part of nature."

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

"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."

"The mind is the ruler of the soul."

"How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself."

"Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go."

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

"A man's life is what his thoughts make of it."

"If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change."

"Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your rest with a good grace, as an olive falls when it is ripe."

"The objective of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

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

"Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need."

"Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself?"

"Dig within. There lies the fount of good; a fount whose waters will ever bubble up, if you but dig deep enough."

"It is time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet."

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

"It is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose."

"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."

"Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature?"

"A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions."

"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."

"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."

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

"Loss is nothing else than change, and change is Nature's delight."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"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?"

"To continue to be the same man as you have been up to now... is to be senseless."

"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."

"Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle."

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