Are you looking for some profound words of wisdom that will inspire you to live an authentic and meaningful life? Then the famous quotes by Marcus Aurelius, the legendary Roman emperor and stoic philosopher, are just what you’re looking for. His timeless insights carry decades of wisdom, and by taking the time to uncover the hidden lessons behind them, you’ll discover life lessons that will help you live more intentionally. His timeless quotes will motivate you to become the best version of yourself and live a more fulfilling life. So, get ready to be uplifted, encouraged, and re-energized as you read the words of the great philosopher.
Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. Marcus Aurelius
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. Marcus Aurelius
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. Marcus Aurelius
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. Marcus Aurelius
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. Marcus Aurelius
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. Marcus Aurelius
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Marcus Aurelius
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. Marcus Aurelius
Our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. Marcus Aurelius
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius
That which is not good for the bee hive cannot be good for the bees. Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. Marcus Aurelius
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight. Marcus Aurelius
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. Marcus Aurelius
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away. Marcus Aurelius
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Marcus Aurelius
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self deception and ignorance who is harmed. Marcus Aurelius
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too. Marcus Aurelius
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question. What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize? 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 Aurelius
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him these are unnatural. Marcus Aurelius
Begin to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished. Marcus Aurelius
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius
Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also. Marcus Aurelius
When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. Marcus Aurelius
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. Marcus Aurelius
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. Marcus Aurelius
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday. Marcus Aurelius
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 Aurelius
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it. Marcus Aurelius
Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter not This is misfortune, but To bear this worthily is good fortune. Marcus Aurelius
Look well into thyself there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look. Marcus Aurelius
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. Marcus Aurelius
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness. Marcus Aurelius
To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution. Marcus Aurelius
Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live. Marcus Aurelius
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy. Marcus Aurelius
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already. Marcus Aurelius
Begin each day by telling yourself. Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness all of them due to the offenders ignorance of what is good or evil. Marcus Aurelius
You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. Marcus Aurelius
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. Marcus Aurelius
Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours. Marcus Aurelius
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. Marcus Aurelius
Perfection of character is this to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence. Marcus Aurelius
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it. Marcus Aurelius
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it. Marcus Aurelius
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life. Marcus Aurelius
Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. Brief is man’s life and small the nook of the earth where he lives brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago. Marcus Aurelius
Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. Marcus Aurelius
It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own. Marcus Aurelius
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so. Marcus Aurelius
If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. Marcus Aurelius
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Marcus Aurelius
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil. Marcus Aurelius
Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them. Marcus Aurelius
Do every act of your life as if it were your last. Marcus Aurelius
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power. Marcus Aurelius
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. Marcus Aurelius
Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs. 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. Marcus Aurelius
Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this reality as you view your dreams. Marcus Aurelius
Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live. Marcus Aurelius
Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil. 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. Marcus Aurelius
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now. Marcus Aurelius
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig. Marcus Aurelius
The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts. Marcus Aurelius
How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks. Marcus Aurelius
Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space and most of it uninhabited. Marcus Aurelius
Anger cannot be dishonest. Marcus Aurelius
Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them. Marcus Aurelius
The act of dying is one of the acts of life. Marcus Aurelius
Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so and so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you means a loss of opportunity for some other task. Marcus Aurelius
Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it. Marcus Aurelius
To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions. Marcus Aurelius
No one can lose either the past or the future how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have. Marcus Aurelius
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Marcus Aurelius
Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew. Marcus Aurelius
Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself. Marcus Aurelius
To live happily is an inward power of the soul. Marcus Aurelius