Stoicism Marcus Aurelius 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

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

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

(To the haters) You are not extinguishing the bright lights of mankind, you're simply burying yourself in an unmarked grave. — Stefan Molyneux

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

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

Marketing is the lifeblood of your small business. It's what makes the cash pour in. — Denise O'Berry

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

All the craft skills that I have, I feel like I developed and honed in drama school. It's the most important thing for me. — Andre Holland

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune. — Marcus Aurelius

Remember two things: i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period; ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have you cannot lose. — Marcus Aurelius

B.C.) - Stoicism stressed the search for inner peace and ethical certainty despite the apparent chaos of the external world by emulating in one's personal conduct the underlying orderliness and lawfulness of nature. — Marcus Aurelius

When you run up against someone else's shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible?
No. Then don't ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members. — Marcus Aurelius

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

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

I readan article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children tobe skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything ... I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax. — Brenda Ueland

Whatever happens, happens such as you are either formed by nature able to bear it, or not able to bear it. If such as you are by nature form'd able to bear, bear it and fret not: But if such as you are not naturally able to bear, don't fret; for when it has consum'd you, itself will perish. Remember, however, you are by nature form'd able to bear whatever it is in the power of your own opinion to make supportable or tolerable, according as you conceive it advantageous, or your duty, to do so. — Marcus Aurelius

No sense in a man with writer's block going to New York. — Kurt Vonnegut

You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, "What are your thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. — Marcus Aurelius

From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition. — Marcus Aurelius

There is something essentially ridiculous about critics, anyway: what is good is good without our saying so, and beneath all our majesty we know this. — Randall Jarrell

The sun appears to pour itself down, and indeed its light pours in all direction, but the stream does not run out. This pouring is linear extension: that is why its beams are called rays, because they radiate in extended lines. You can see what a ray is if you observe the sun's light entering a dark room through a narrow opening. It extends in a straight line and impacts, so to speak, on any solid body in its path which blocks passage through the air on the other side: it settles there and does not slip off or fall. — Marcus Aurelius