Quotes
Quotes - Aurelius
This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.
The ways of the gods are full of providence.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine.
Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.
No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.
Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.
For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.
As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.
Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.
The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.
Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.
A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.
Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments.
Remember that man's life lies all within this present, as 't were but a hair's-breadth of time; as for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
The ruling power within, when it is in its natural state, is so related to outer circumstances that it easily changes to accord with what can be done and what is given it to do.
Let no act be done at haphazard, nor otherwise than according to the finished rules that govern its kind.
By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.
Think on this doctrine,--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.
Death, like generation, is a secret of Nature.
