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
Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Live each day as if you have already passed, cherishing the extra time as a gift to align with nature.
Marcus Aurelius emphasizes the importance of viewing life from the perspective of its impermanence. By considering that your story has ended, you appreciate every moment of life that follows as a precious bonus, encouraging you to live in balance and harmony with the natural world around you.
Themes
LifeNaturePerspectiveHarmonyPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a meditation retreat, I shared this quote to inspire others to appreciate the present moment.
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
Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.
Arnold J. ToynbeeRead
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Dorothy ParkerRead
The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
Day after day I read Freud, thinking myself to be very enlightened and scientific when, as a matter of fact, I was about as scientific as an old woman secretly poring over books about occultism, trying to tell her own fortune, and learning how to dope out the future form the lines in the palm of her hand. I don't know if I ever got very close to needing a padded cell: but if I ever had gone crazy, I think psychoanalysis would have been the one thing chiefly responsible for it.
Thomas MertonRead
The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.
Michel De MontaigneRead
The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.
Sonia SotomayorRead