55 Best Of Marcus Aurelius Quotes Of All Time – Must See #17

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was a Roman emperor, stoic philosopher, and one of history’s greatest leaders. Considered one of the “five Good Emperors” of the last peaceful period of the Roman empire before its division in 395 AD and subsequent decline. If you are looking for the best quotes from Marcus Aurelius about stoicism and what it meant to live a good life, welcome you have come to the right place.

Also, check out our best quotes collection of Socrates and Plato.

Here is the collection of best quotes by Marcus Aurelius

1. “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
2. “Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my perceptions – not outside.”
3. “If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it.”
4. “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
5. “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.”
6. “Confine yourself to the present.”
7. “Straight, not straightened.”
8. “Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time.”
9. “That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.”
10. “To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”
11. “You can commit injustice by doing nothing.”
12. “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
13. “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. Click to tweet”
14. “Someone despises me. That’s their problem.”
15. “Integrity and manliness. (What Marcus learned from his father)”
16. “To accept without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.”
17. “Each day provides its gifts.”
18. “Character and self-control. (What Marcus learned from his grandfather Verus)”
19. “Anger cannot be dishonest.”
20. “Nothing should be done without a purpose.”
21. “Even the smallest thing should be done concerning an end.”
22. “What is your art? To be good.”
23. “Give yourself a gift: the present moment.”
24. “What illusion about myself do I entertain?”
25. “Glory’s an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather.”
26. “A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”
27. “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
28. “Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.”
29. “Keep at it… As a blazing fire takes whatever you throw on it, and makes it light and flame.”
30. “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
31. “Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”
32. “When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance, revert at once to yourself and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it.”
33. “To harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice.”
34. “Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.”
35. “Do little, if you want contentment of mind.”
36. “Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.”
37. “If something does not make a person worse in himself, neither does it make his life worse, nor does it harm him without or within.”
38. “Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful – and hence neither good nor bad.”
39. “The present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose something he does not already possess.”
40. “Don’t believe your situation is genuinely bad – no one can make you do that. Is there smoke in the house? If it’s not suffocating, I will stay indoors; if it proves too much, I’ll leave. Always remember – the door is open.”
41. “What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.”
42. “Someone bathes in haste; don’t say he bathes badly but in haste. Someone drinks a lot of wine; don’t say he drinks badly, but a lot. Until you know their reasons, how do you know that their actions are vicious?”
43. “Consider that everything is an opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away then, when you choose, your opinion, and like a mariner who has rounded the headland, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.”
44. “The flaw which is hidden is deemed greater than it is.”
45. “Glory paid to our ashes comes too late.”
46. “The universe is transformation: life is opinion.”
47. “A vine cannot behave livelily, nor an olive tree finely – it is impossible, inconceivable. No more can a human being wholly efface his native disposition.”
48. “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.”
49. “Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned – to speak and act most healthily. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and prevention.”
50. “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”
51. “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.”
52. “There were two vices much blacker and more serious than the rest: lack of persistence and lack of self-control… persist and resist.”
53. “The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.”
54. “Look within. Within is the foundation of good, and it will ever bubble up if you will ever dig.”
55. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

Conclusion

One of the most respected Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius is best remembered for his rule driven by reason and his intellectual interest in stoicism. Marcus Aurelius had written many greatest works and philosophy- meditations. Check out this post by FourMinuteBooks for more.