Marcus Aurelius on Wisdom Quotes

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

"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."

"Everything that happens is as simple and familiar as the rose in spring, the fruit in summer. Such are disease, death, calumny, treachery, and all the things which delight fools or vex them."

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

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

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

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

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

"The mind is the ruler of the soul."

"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."

"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."

"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."

"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."

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

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

"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?"

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

"A man should always have these two rules in readiness: the one to do only what the reason of the royal and law-making faculty suggests."

"Receive without conceit, release without struggle."

"Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them."

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

"No man is happy who does not think himself so."

"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly."

"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."

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

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."

"If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it."

"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."

"Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds."

"Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul."