Marcus Aurelius

What is evil? It is that which you have seen many times. And when you are about to be angry with anyone, remember that man is not evil, but only acts in error.

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

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

Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

How many things are there of which I have gained a knowledge, not by the help of reason, but by experience!

Do not waste the remainder of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some common good. For to speculate about what your neighbor is doing, and why, and what he is saying, and what he is thinking of, and for what purpose, and how much he troubles himself with all these things, is just to lose the opportunity of doing something else.

To expect that your children will never do wrong is to be a fool.

Imagine that you have died and your life has come to an end. Now think about the life you wish you had lived. Live that life now.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

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

Ask yourself: Is this necessary?

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

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

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

Thou wilt soon die, and thou art not yet simple, nor free from perturbations, nor without suspicion of harm from external things, nor an affectionate friend to wisdom, nor without suspicion that any external thing can hurt thee.

Consider the past—a change of empires, and you may foresee the future. For it will be the same kind of thing, and it is impossible for things to deviate from the present order: wherefore to contemplate life for forty years is the same as to contemplate it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?

Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power.

In a little while you will be nobody and nowhere.

That which does not make a man worse, does not make his life worse.