QuoteProject
Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.
Marcus Aurelius
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the futility of trying to change others while advocating for personal authenticity.

Marcus Aurelius reflects on the importance of individual choices and the inevitability of human behavior remaining constant, regardless of external influences. By expressing the notion that we should act according to our will, the quote speaks to the existential struggle between self-identity and the surrounding world's indifference to our personal turmoil and efforts to enforce change upon it.

Themes

IndividualityAuthenticityHuman BehaviorChangeFutility

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech highlighting personal choices despite societal pressure.

More from Marcus Aurelius

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.
Marcus AureliusRead
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus AureliusRead
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Marcus AureliusRead
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.
Marcus AureliusRead
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
Marcus AureliusRead
A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
Marcus AureliusRead

Similar quotes

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love.
Julian Of NorwichRead
Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
Oswald ChambersRead
How we treat our invalids - our mad, our physically or mentally compromised family members - does tell you something about who we are politically, historically, culturally.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.
Margaret AtwoodRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.