Life Marcus Aurelius Quotes & Sayings

One whose chief regard is for his own mind, and for the divinity within him and the service of its goodness, will strike no poses, utter no complaints, and crave neither for solitude nor yet for a crowd. Best of all, his life will be free from continual pursuing and avoiding. — Marcus Aurelius

June 16th NO SHAME IN NEEDING HELP "Don't be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle. So what if you are injured and can't climb up without another soldier's help?" - MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.7 No one ever said you were born with all the tools you'd need to solve every problem you'd face in life. In fact, as a newborn you were practically helpless. Someone helped you then, and you came to understand that you could ask for that help. It was how you knew you were loved. Well, you are still loved. You can ask anyone for help. You don't have to face everything on your own. If you need help, comrade, just ask. — Ryan Holiday

Now departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind: and they have put it absolutely in man's power to avoid falling into the true kinds of harm. — Marcus Aurelius

Consider the nature of all worldly sensible things; of those especially, which either ensnare by pleasure, or for their irksomeness are dreadful, or for their outward lustre and show are in great esteem and request, how vile and contemptible, how base and corruptible, how destitute of all true life and being they are. — Marcus Aurelius

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it. — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. — Marcus Aurelius

Do, soul, do; abuse and contemn thyself; yet a while and the time for thee to respect thyself, will be at an end. Every man's happiness depends from himself, but behold thy life is almost at an end, whiles affording thyself no respect, thou dost make thy happiness to consist in the souls, and conceits of other men. — Marcus Aurelius

In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors. — Marcus Aurelius

Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life.' Marcus Aurelius said that. — Brittainy C. Cherry

Don't let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don't fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it's so unbearable and can't be survived." - MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.36 — Ryan Holiday

There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won't hail the occasion with delight. — Marcus Aurelius

Altogether the interval is small between birth and death; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with what sort of people and in what a feeble body this interval is laboriously passed. Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? — Marcus Aurelius

You should take no action unwillingly, selfishly, uncritically, or with conflicting motives. Do not dress up your thoughts in smart finery: do not be a gabbler or a meddler. Further, let the god that is within you be the champion of the being you are a male, mature in years, a statesman, a Roman, a ruler: one who has taken his post like a soldier waiting for the Retreat from life to sound, and ready to depart, past the need for any loyal oath or human witness. And see that you keep a cheerful demeanour, and retain your independence of outside help and the peace which others can give. Your duty is to stand straight - not held straight. — Marcus Aurelius

God give me patience, to reconcile with what I am not able to change
Give me strength to change what I can
And give me wisdom to distinguish one from another. — Marcus Aurelius

Consider the whole universe whereof thou art but a very little part, and the whole age of the world together, whereof but a short and very momentary portion is allotted unto thee, and all the fates and destinies together, of which how much is it that comes to thy part and share. — Marcus Aurelius

If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. — Marcus Aurelius

Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise. — Marcus Aurelius

His mood is one of strenuous weariness; he does his duty as a good soldier, waiting for the sound of the trumpet which shall sound the retreat; he has not that cheerful confidence which led Socrates through a life no less noble, to a death which was to bring him into the company of gods he had worshipped and men whom he had revered. — Marcus Aurelius

In the human life time is but an instant, and the substance of it a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of certainty. And, to say all in a word, everything that belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after- fame is oblivion. What then can guide a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. — Marcus Aurelius

Meditate upon what you ought to be in body and soul when death overtakes you; meditate on the brevity of life, and the measureless gulf of eternity behind it and before, and upon the frailty of everything material. — Marcus Aurelius

Let not the general representation unto thyself of the wretchedness of this our mortal life, trouble thee. — Marcus Aurelius

Hippocrates cured many illnesses - and then fell ill and
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,
Caesar - who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so
many thousand foot and horse in battle - they too departedthis life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared
with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,
Socrates by the human kind.
And?
You boarded, you set sail, you've made the passage. Time
to disembark. If it's for another life, well, there's nowhere
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body - so
much inferior to that which serves it.
One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage. — Marcus Aurelius

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius

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. — Marcus Aurelius

Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away. That which does not make a man worse than he was, also does not make his life worse, nor does it harm him either from without or from within. — Marcus Aurelius

Swiftly the remembrance of all things is buried in the gulf of eternity. — Marcus Aurelius

Can anything that is useful be accomplished without change? — Marcus Aurelius

What am I but a little flesh, a little breath, and the thinking part that rules the whole? — Marcus Aurelius

Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region. — Marcus Aurelius

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil. — Marcus Aurelius

He claimed that a man's life should be valued according to the value of the things to which he gave his attention. — Marcus Aurelius

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life — Marcus Aurelius

You and I are both admirers of Marcus Aurelius, and you will remember this passage in his Meditations: "Do wrong to thyself, do wrong to thyself, my soul; but later thou wilt no longer have the opportunity of respecting and honoring thyself. For every man has but one life. But yours is nearly finished, though in it you had no regard for yourself but placed thy felicity in the souls of others. . . . But those who do not observe the impulses of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy." Thank — Pascal Mercier

Just consider, my friend, whether a pure spirit and virtue are anything other than saving your life and being saved. Perhaps we need to discard the idea of longevity and cease loving this life, instead committing these things to God and, believing that no one ever escapes destiny, to consider, with that in mind, how we may live the best possible life in the time that remains. — Marcus Aurelius

Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal. — Marcus Aurelius

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne. — Marcus Aurelius

Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last. — Marcus Aurelius

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it. — Marcus Aurelius

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious. — Marcus Aurelius

And here are two of the most immediately useful thoughts you will dip into. First that things cannot touch the mind: they are external and inert; anxieties can only come from your internal judgement. Second, hat all these things you see will change almost as you look at them, and then will be no more. Constantly bring to mind all that you yourself have already seen changed. The universe is change: life is judgement. — Marcus Aurelius

A trite but effective tactic against the fear of death: think of the list of people who had to be pried away from life. What did they gain by dying old? In the end, they all sleep six feet under - Caedicianus, Fabius, Julian, Lepidus, and all the rest. They buried their contemporaries, and were buried in turn. Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these circumstances, among these people, in this body? Nothing to get excited about. Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations: what's the difference? — Marcus Aurelius

Don't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand ... Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present. — Marcus Aurelius

Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad. — Marcus Aurelius

Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground. — Marcus Aurelius

Do not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature. For just as we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life, and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence, so also do we have death. A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully, but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes. — Marcus Aurelius

Live every day as if they last. — Marcus Aurelius

Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature. — Marcus Aurelius

And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. — Marcus Aurelius

All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius

Your life is an expression of all your thoughts. — Marcus Aurelius

Reverence that which is best in the universe; and this is that which makes use of all things and directs all things. And in like manner also reverence that which is best in thyself; and this is of the same kind as that. For in thyself also, that which makes use of everything else, is this, and thy life is directed by this. — Marcus Aurelius

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life. — Marcus Aurelius

Surely it is an excellent plan, when you are seated before delicacies and choice foods, to impress upon your imagination that this is the dead body of a fish, that the dead body of a bird or a pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is grape juice and that robe of purple a lamb's fleece dipped in a shellfish's blood; and in matters of sex intercourse, that it is the attrition of an entrail and a convulsive expulsion of a mere mucus. Surely these are excellent imaginations, going to the heart of actual facts and penetrating them so as to see the kind of things they really are. You should adopt this practice all through your life, and where things make an impression which is very plausible, uncover their nakedness, see into their cheapness, strip off the profession on which they vaunt themselves. For pride is an arch-seducer of reason, and just when you fancy you are most certainly busy in good works, then you are mostly certainly guilty of imposture. — Marcus Aurelius

Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this, too, is one of those things that nature wills. For such as it is to be young and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and beard and grey hairs, and to beget, and to be pregnant and to bring forth, and all the other natural operations that the seasons of your life bring, such also is dissolution. This, then, is consistent with the character of a reflecting man, to be neither careless nor impatient nor contemptuous with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the operations of nature. As you now wait for the time when the child shall come out of your wife's womb, so be ready for the time when your soul shall fall out of this envelope. — Marcus Aurelius

As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement. — Marcus Aurelius

A man's life is what his thoughts make of it. — Marcus Aurelius

When an opponent in the gymnasium gashes us with his nails or bruises our head in a collision, we do not protest or take offence, and we do not suspect him ever afterwards of malicious intent. However, we do regard him with a wary eye; not in enmity or suspicion, yet good-temperedly keeping our distance. So let it be, too, at other times in life; let us agree to overlook a great many things in those who are, as it were, our fellow-contestants. A simple avoidance, as I have said, is always open to us, without either suspicion or ill will. — Marcus Aurelius

Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours. — Marcus Aurelius

The act of dying is one of the acts of life. — Marcus Aurelius

Life is opinion. — Marcus Aurelius

He that lives alone lives in danger; society avoids many dangers. — Marcus Aurelius

Thou mayest foresee ... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. — Marcus Aurelius

The universe is a single life comprising one substance and one soul. — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life. — Marcus Aurelius

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go — Marcus Aurelius

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain. — Marcus Aurelius

True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: 'You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.' And everything is turned to one's advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art
and this art called 'life' is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend? — Marcus Aurelius

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

That that life which any the longest liver, or the shortest liver parts with, is for length and duration the very same, for that only which is present, is that, which either of them can lose, as being that only which they have; for that which he hath not, no man can truly be said to lose. — Marcus Aurelius

Everything of the body is a river. Everything of the soul is dream and vapour. Life is war and the abode of a stranger. The only fame after death is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution. — Marcus Aurelius

Our thoughts is what our life make it — Marcus Aurelius

Don't live as though you were going to live a myriad years. Fate is hanging over your head; while you have life, while you may, become good. — Marcus Aurelius

And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he [my father] used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. — Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. — Marcus Aurelius

Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them. — Marcus Aurelius

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ... — Marcus Aurelius

The universe is change, and life mere opinion — Marcus Aurelius

Love the art, poor as it may be, that you have learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has entrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making yourself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man. — Marcus Aurelius

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding. — Marcus Aurelius

Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, "Why is this so unbearable? Why can't I endure it?" You'll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present - and even that can be minimized. Just mark off its limits. — Marcus Aurelius

Observe and contemplate on the hidden things of life: how a man's seed is but the beginning, it takes others to bring it to fruition. Think how food undergoes such changes to produce health and strength. See the power of these hidden things which, like the wind cannot been seen, but its effects can be. — Marcus Aurelius

You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening. - But there are external obstacles. ... Not to behaving with justice, self-control, and good sense. - Well, but perhaps to some more concrete action. But if you accept the obstacle and work with what you're given, an alternative will present itself - another piece of what you're trying to assemble. Action by action. — Marcus Aurelius

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life. — Marcus Aurelius

Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought
to the same. For the present is the same to all, though that which perishes is not the same; and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. — Marcus Aurelius

Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others. — Marcus Aurelius

... praise does not make anything better or worse. — Marcus Aurelius

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly, And be patience with those who don't. — Marcus Aurelius

If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other
people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things
that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body
that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling
chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from
fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance
- doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking
the truth
If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind,
free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as
Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect
stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived
(which means the present) ... then you can spend the time
you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace
with the spirit within you. — Marcus Aurelius

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. — Marcus Aurelius

If you separate from ... everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future ... and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity. — Marcus Aurelius

How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life. — Marcus Aurelius

Its a dream, a fearful dream, life is — Marcus Aurelius

Be your own master, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. — Marcus Aurelius

Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity. — Marcus Aurelius

What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it. — Marcus Aurelius

Real good luck would be to abandon life without ever encountering dishonesty, or hypocrisy, or self-indulgence, or pride. But the "next best voyage" is to die when you've had enough. Or are you determined to lie down with evil? Hasn't experience even taught you that - to avoid it like the plague? Because it is a plague - a mental cancer - worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate. Diseases like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity. — Marcus Aurelius

Do every act of your life as if it were your last. — Marcus Aurelius

Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine. — Marcus Aurelius

It is a shame when the soul is first to give way in this life, and the body does not give way. — Marcus Aurelius