Marcus Aurelius

Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.

Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.

Observe and contemplate on the hidden things of life: how a man's seed is but the beginning, it takes others to bring it to fruition. Think how food undergoes such changes to produce health and strength. See the power of these hidden things which, like the wind cannot been seen, but its effects can be.

Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure.

One universe made up all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth.

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life, - there, if one must speak out, the real man.

No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such

To them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.

I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth.

No form of nature is inferior to art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.

This is the chief thing: be not perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal.

It is not the body, nor the personality that is the true self. The true self is eternal. Even on the point of death we can say to ourselves, "my true self is free. I cannot be contained."

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.

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?

Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.

Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious.

Stick to what's in front of you - idea, action, utterance.

How easy it is to repel and release every impression which is troublesome and immediately to be tranquil.