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
Submit to the fate of your own free will.
Interpretation
Embrace your circumstances while exercising your ability to choose.
This quote by Marcus Aurelius highlights the interplay between fate and free will, suggesting that while certain aspects of life may be predetermined, we still possess the power to make choices within those constraints. It encourages individuals to accept the things they cannot control while actively engaging in the decisions that define their lives.
In practice
During a motivational speech on overcoming adversity, one might say, 'Remember, submit to the fate of your own free will.'
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.
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
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.
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.
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
Thoughtfulness is the way to deathlessness, thoughtlessness the way to death. The thoughtful do not die: the thoughtless are as if dead already.
The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.
Our government, conceived in liberty and purchased with blood, can be preserved only by constant vigilance. May we guard it as our children's richest legacy, for what shall it profit our nation if it shall gain the whole world and lose “the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere”?
Maybe it's like Mac says. Ever man winds up with the horse that suits him.
I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the 'Yale News.'—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the 'well-rounded man.' This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
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