Marcus Aurelius

If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good.

Marcus Aurelius

If anyone can refute me-show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective – I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

Marcus Aurelius

If I and my two children cannot move the gods, the gods must have their reasons.

Marcus Aurelius

If man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.

Marcus Aurelius

If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.’

Marcus Aurelius

In a little while you will have forgotten everything; in a little while everything will have forgotten you.

Marcus Aurelius

In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them.

Marcus Aurelius

In everything that you do, pause and ask yourself if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives you of this.

Marcus Aurelius

In no great while you will be no one and nowhere, and nothing that you now behold will be in existence, nor will anyone now alive. For it is in the nature of all things to change and alter and perish, so that others may arise in their turn.

Marcus Aurelius

In the mind that is once truly disciplined and purged, thou canst not find anything, either foul or impure, or as it were festered: nothing that is either servile, or affected: no partial tie; no malicious averseness; nothing obnoxious; nothing concealed.

Marcus Aurelius