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
anger passion men
In the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
fate play fleeting
Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.
acceptance judgement events
Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance - now, at this very moment - of all external events. That's all you need.
silly people trying
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
way faces spirit
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
giving-up giving stills
Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.
children war holiday
Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.
space errors effort
... Allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.
sake constitution rational
Every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another.
order years should
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.
atoms elements earth
That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.
justice soul mind
Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to keep this in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.
essence practice doctrine
Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
pain giving fit
It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.