Rome
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Everything that happens, happens as it should, and if you observe carefully you will find this to be so.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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, Meditations
"No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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, Meditations
“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 opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"What we do now echoes in eternity."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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, Meditations
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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, Meditations
"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, Meditations
“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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, Meditations
Do less, better. Because most of what we do or say is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more tranquility. But to eliminate the necessary actions, we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothing can happen to you that is not required by Nature.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top— credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Men exist for the sake of one another.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
