Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors.
Below are his best quotes revolving around the subjects of life, love, death, anger, politics, stoicism and much more.
Share these quotes from Marcus Aurelius
Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.
Marcus Aurelius
Pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.
Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Marcus Aurelius
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
Marcus Aurelius
The best answer to anger is silence.
Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.
Marcus Aurelius
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Marcus Aurelius
Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.
Marcus Aurelius
The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.
Marcus Aurelius
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
A man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.
Marcus Aurelius
It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them.
Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius
Receive without conceit, release without struggle.
Marcus Aurelius
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.
Marcus Aurelius
If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it.
Marcus Aurelius
‘I will throw you into prison.’ Correction – it is my body you will throw there.
Marcus Aurelius
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.
Marcus Aurelius
Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.
Marcus Aurelius
Confine yourself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius
To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
Marcus Aurelius
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.
Marcus Aurelius
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
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
Is any man afraid of change? What can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And can you take a hot bath unless the wood for the fire undergoes a change? And can you be nourished unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?
Marcus Aurelius
Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.
Marcus Aurelius
Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time.
Marcus Aurelius
Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.
Marcus Aurelius
You’re subject to sorrow, fear, jealousy, anger and inconsistency. That’s the real reason you should admit that you are not wise.
Marcus Aurelius
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.
Marcus Aurelius
The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material. But this is going to take some sweat to accomplish.
Marcus Aurelius
Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful – and hence neither good nor bad.
Marcus Aurelius
A boxer derives the greatest advantage from his sparring partner – and my accuser is my sparring partner. He trains me in patience, civility and even temper.
Marcus Aurelius
How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.
Marcus Aurelius
So I look for the best and am prepared for the opposite.
Marcus Aurelius
When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.
Marcus Aurelius
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
Marcus Aurelius
People with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold; people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions.
Marcus Aurelius
Receive without pride, let go without attachment.
Marcus Aurelius
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.
Marcus Aurelius
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Marcus Aurelius
