Marcus Aurelius Quotes

• Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Education

• Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

  Marcus Aurelius

• Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Success

• Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Life

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

  Marcus Aurelius

• Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

  Marcus Aurelius

• Each day provides its own gifts.

  Marcus Aurelius

• Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Life

• Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Death, Nature

• Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Death

• Confine yourself to the present.

  Marcus Aurelius

• Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Work

• Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Power

• A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

  Marcus Aurelius

• To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead – and to realize that no expense should be grudged for this purpose.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Advice

• Remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Life

• Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Nature

  Tags in Imitation, Change/Growth

• Every man’s life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Now

• 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.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Attitude, Fear, Suffering

• If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Topics in Advice, Truth

  Tags in Ethics

Marcus Aurelius (122)

Birth:	26th April, 0121
Death:	17th March, 0180
Nationality:	Roman
Profession:	Emperor, Philosopher

About

Marcus Aurelius was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors, and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.

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