Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aureliuswas Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors. He was a practitioner of Stoicism, and his untitled writing, commonly known as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, is the most significant source of our modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth26 April 121
CityRome, Italy
Marcus Aurelius quotes about
self gains return
When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it.
morning men action
When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, endeavor to rouse your faculties, and act up to your kind, and consider that you have to do the business of a man; and that action is both beneficial and the end of your being.
justice done movement
Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.
two flattery ceremony
Truth and ceremony are two things.
intelligent breathing air
No longer let thy breathing only act in concert with the air which surrounds thee, but let thy intelligence also now be in harmony with the intelligence which embraces all things. For the intelligent power is no less diffused in all parts and pervades all things for him who is willing to draw it to him than the aërial power for him who is able to respire it.
thee present-time thyself
Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.
drama actors events-in-history
All those [events in history] were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.
plato men thinking
From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.
wise deeds being-wise
Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.
atheism looks purpose
From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason.
opinion
Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
live-life men good-man
Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.
air soul atheism
If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?
forgiveness ignorance men
It is right that man should love those who have offended him. He will do so when he remembers that all men are his relations, and that it is through ignorance and involuntarily that they sin,--and then we all die so soon.