Marcus Aurelius Stoic Quotes & Sayings

Hour by hour resolve firmly to do what comes to hand with dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. See how little man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more. — Marcus Aurelius

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. — Marcus Aurelius

His education was conducted with all care. The ablest teachers were engaged for him, and he was trained in the strict doctrine of the Stoic philosophy, which was his great delight. He was taught to dress plainly and to live simply, to avoid all softness and luxury. His body was trained to hardihood by wrestling, hunting, and outdoor games; and though his constitution was weak, he showed great personal courage to encounter the fiercest boars. At the same time he was kept from the extravagancies of his day. — Marcus Aurelius

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible. — Marcus Aurelius

The Stoic discovers the model for his virtuous conduct in studying the laws of nature; just as each object, plant, and animal serves its fated role in the larger order, so the human strives to steer his actions in accordance with his unique power, reason, his inner mirror of the logos that governs the universe. — Marcus Aurelius

We need to stop making wide-body seats on airplanes, stop accommodating that, because it's not healthy. — Kevin Plank

Either they fall down, or they make me look like Tintin," Ben complained. "It's all right for Fritz - he's the same shape as those plastic blokes in the window. — Kate Saunders

Count your blessings...not your inconveniences. — Robert G. Jarmon

E-Commerce is happening the way all the hype said it would. Internet deployment is happening. Broadband is happening. Everything we ever said about the Internet is happening. And it is very, very early. We can't even glimpse it's potential in changing the way people work and live. — Andy Grove

He was, after all, just a man. And not merely a narrative. — Hanif Kureishi

When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it. — Marcus Aurelius

Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again. — Marcus Aurelius

When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they're misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard? — Marcus Aurelius

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (one of the doer-Stoic authors), "fire feeds on obstacles. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Stoic makes no differentiation between a small act of kindness by a simple person and a great act of virtue from a learned sage. Virtue is virtue, and in both cases the result is happiness for the one who is virtuous. — Marcus Aurelius

Change is constant and always happening...The more flexible we are, the more we can benefit from life's changes that occurs. — Dionna L. Hayden

Bodies, again,
Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
Unions deriving from the primal germs. — Lucretius

Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Indeed, the application of the adjective "stoic" to a person who shows strength and courage in misfortune probably owes more to the aristocratic Roman value system than it does to Greek philosophers. Stoicism — Marcus Aurelius

Who are you after?"
"The snarky asshole one."
"Could you be a little more specific."
"The one who has a staff and throws their toys out of the pram that one."
"Ooh."
"Yeah. — Charon Lloyd-Roberts

The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling principle makes all things work together for good, but for the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature. In the individual it is virtue alone which enables him to do this; as Providence rules the universe, so virtue in the soul must rule man. — Marcus Aurelius

Even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view. — Marcus Aurelius

I don't even feel so sure of that any more. I mean, if we were a couple, he'd be here, wouldn't he? He'd be here with me. — Sophie Kinsella

Even the masochists tell everything when tortured. From sheer gratitude. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.' "You and your parents aren't mentioned, — J.K. Rowling

Someone sits in a mountain vale A robe of clouds, rainbows for tassels The fragrant forest is the place to live The road has been long and difficult With a heart full of doubt and regret A life has passed and nothing has been accomplished Others call it failure I stand alone devoted to this Cold Mountain life — Hanshan

One is a careful distinction between things which are in our power and things which are not. Desire and dislike, opinion and affection, are within the power of the will; whereas health, wealth, honour, and other such are generally not so. The Stoic was called upon to control his desires and affections, and to guide his opinion; — Marcus Aurelius

Some women marry houses. — Anne Sexton