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 to assemble your life yourself - action by action.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life requires active involvement and personal effort to shape it.
This quote by Marcus Aurelius emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility and proactive engagement in crafting our lives. It suggests that fulfillment and purpose are achieved through deliberate actions, underscoring the idea that we cannot wait for circumstances to change but must take initiative ourselves, step by step.
Themes
Self-AssemblyLifeActionResponsibilityPersonal Growth
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal development.
More from Marcus Aurelius
All quotes βYou 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
Each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and everyone of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.
Laverne CoxRead
When people have points of reference that are humanizing, that demystifies difference.
Laverne CoxRead
The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
All things may corrupt when minds are prone to evil.
OvidRead
Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a hallucinating idiot...for he sees what no one else does: things that, to everyone else, are not there.
Marshall McluhanRead