Marcus Aurelius quotes - page 15

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished. (Marcus Aurelius)
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it. (Marcus Aurelius)
To live happily is an inward power of the soul. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
The act of dying is one of the acts of life. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity-especially illness. (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
We are all made for mutual assistance, as the feet, the hands, and the eyelids, as the rows of the upper and under teeth, from whence it follows that clashing and opposition is perfectly unnatural. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?' (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. (Hays translation) (Marcus Aurelius)
A horse at the end of the race...A dog when the hunt is over...A bee with its honey stored...And a human being after helping others. They don't make a fuss about it. They just go on to something else, as the vine looks forward to bearing fruit again in season. We should be like that. Acting almost unconsciously. (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
The other reason is that what happens to the individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world--of its well-being, its fulfillment, or its very existence, even. Because the whole is damaged if you cut away anything--anything at all--from its continuity and its coherence. Not only its parts, but its purposes. And that's what you're doing when you complain: hacking and destroying. (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh--gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into our thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don't try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don't let the mind start in with judgments, calling it 'good' or 'bad.' (Hays translation) View quote
Marcus Aurelius
For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it is the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness [of deserting his post]. View quote
Marcus Aurelius