Introduction,
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor, philosopher, and writer born on April 26, 121 AD, in Rome, Italy. He was born into a prominent and wealthy family, with his father being a senator and his mother being related to the ruling family of the time.
Marcus Aurelius was educated in philosophy, rhetoric, and law, and he developed a passion for Stoicism, which would later shape his thinking and rule as emperor. He became emperor in 161 AD, following the death of his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius.
As emperor, Marcus Aurelius faced numerous challenges, including invasions by Germanic tribes, a plague, and political unrest. Despite these challenges, he is remembered as a wise and just ruler who put the welfare of his people above his own interests.
Marcus Aurelius was also known for his writings, particularly his “Meditations,” a collection of personal reflections and philosophical musings. In his writings, he emphasized the importance of virtue, self-control, and acceptance of the natural order of things.
Marcus Aurelius died on March 17, 180 AD, in Vindobona, which is now Vienna, Austria, during a military campaign against Germanic tribes. He was succeeded by his son, Commodus, who did not share his father’s commitment to philosophy and justice.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
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.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different being and thou wilt not cease to live.
The obstacle is the path.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
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.
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
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.
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
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.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
Poverty is the mother of crime.
The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
Each day provides its own gifts.
Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
