Home Author 151 Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes That Can Make You Successful

151 Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes That Can Make You Successful

Quotes by Marcus Aurelius

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1973
Marcus Aurelius Stoicism
Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Marcus Aurelius, the byname is Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, born on 26 April 121 and died on 17 March 180. He was the Roman ruler from 161 -180 CE and a Stoic philosopher. Marcus was the last of the rulers best known as the Five Good Emperors, as follows Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. Aurelius worked as Roman consul in 140, 145 CE, and 161 CE. Read 151 Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes That Can Make You Successful.

The son of the pretor Marcus Annius Verus III and the rich heiress Domitia Lucilla, He raised by his grandfather, Marcus Annius (II) after his dad died. Marcus uncle Antoninus Pius adopt him shortly before become emperor in 138CE. Now the heir to the authority, He studied Greek and Latin under teachers such as Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Marcus kept in close communication with Fronto for many years. He married Antoninus’s daughter Faustina in 145 CE. Antoninus died following a disorder in 161 CE.

The reign of Marcus Aurelius marked by military opposition. In the East, the Roman Empire supported successfully with a revitalized Parthian Empire and the rebel Kingdom of Armenia. He defeated the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges in the Marcomannic Wars; though, these and other Germanic peoples started to represent a troubling actuality for the Empire.

Marcus changed the silver whiteness of the Roman currency denarius. The massacre of Christians in the Roman Empire is believed to have expanded during his reign. The Antonine Plague broke out in 165 CE or 166 CE and devastated the population of the Roman Empire, the deaths of five million people.

Unlike a few of his ancestors, He chose not to select an heir. Marcus children’s included Lucilla (who married Lucius Verus, co-emperor from 161CE to 169CE) and Commodus, whose succession after He has become a subject of debate among contemporary and modern historians.

The Column and the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius stand in Rome, where they erected in celebration of his military victories. Meditations, the writings of the philosopher as contemporary biographers called Marcus are an important source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy. They have been praised by fellow politicians, philosophers, autocrats, and authors centuries after his death.

Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Read 151 Best Marcus Aurelius Quotes That Can Make You Successful. Those Quotes on Success, Ambition, Friendship, Love, and Marriage.

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Success

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Success
Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Success

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.”

“Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence.”

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

“Receive without pride, let go without attachment.”

“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.”

“In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not also be governed by it.”

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”

“The best answer to anger is silence.”

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“You can commit injustice by doing nothing.”

“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.”

“Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives it.”

“If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?”

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

“To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.”

“If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it.”

Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations
Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.”

“The world is maintained by change – in the elements and in the things they compose. That should be enough for you; treat it as an axiom.”

“Be content to seem what you really are.”

“Receive without conceit, release without struggle.”

“But if you accept the obstacle and work with what you’re given, an alternative will present itself – another piece of what you’re trying to assemble. Action by action.”

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”

“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”

“Bear in mind that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges, and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot. Or that everything was born to die.”

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”

“To have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more will you see?”

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”

“Before long, nature, which controls it all, will alter everything you see and use it as material for something else – over and over again. So that the world is continually renewed.”

“I say that virtue is more valuable than wealth to the same degree that eyes are more valuable than fingernails.”

“Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance, now, at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.”

“It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them.”

“Don’t be disappointed if you return home with the very same set of ideas you arrived with. Because you had no intention of changing, correcting or adopting others in their place.”

Marcus Aurelius on Marriage

Marcus Aurelius on Marriage
Marcus Aurelius on Marriage

“Take care that you don’t treat inhumanity as it treats human beings.”

“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.”

“A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”

“The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.”

“An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.”

“Remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present.”

“The mind in itself has no needs, except for those it creates itself. Is undisturbed, except for its own disturbances. Knows no obstructions, except those from within.”

“Death and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure — all these things equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.”

“The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”

“How short is the time from birth to dissolution, and the illimitable time before birth as well as the equally boundless time after dissolution.”

“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.”

“A thing is neither better nor worse for having been praised.”

“It stares you in the face. No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.”

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.”

“Nothing natural is evil.”

Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Marcus Aurelius Stoicism
Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

“No one objects to what is useful to him. To be of use to others is natural. Then don’t object to what is useful to you – being of use.”

“Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.”

“When I see that one thing [virtue] is supreme and most important, I cannot say that something else is, just to make you happy.”

“Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the emerald (or the gold or the purple) were always saying “Whatever any one does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.”

“Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”

“A boxer derives the greatest advantage from his sparring partner – and my accuser is my sparring partner. He trains me in patience, civility and even temper.”

“The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.”

“One thing here is worth a great deal: to pass your life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men.”

“Either you’re going to be depressed when your wish is not realized or foolishly pleased with yourself if it is, overjoyed for the wrong reasons.”

“Do you have reason? I have. Why then do you not use it?”

“Have I been made for this, to lie under the blankets and keep myself warm?”

“Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.”

“But I get to wear a crown of gold.’ If you have your heart set on wearing crowns, why not make one out of roses – you will look even more elegant in that.”

“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.”

“Who exactly are these people that you want to be admired by? Aren’t they the same people you are in the habit of calling crazy? And is this your life ambition, then – to win the approval of lunatics?”

Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Love

Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Love
Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Love

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

“Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, coupling, evacuating, and so forth. Then what kind of men they are when they are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated place.”

“Whatever the nature of the whole does, and whatever serves to maintain it, is good for every part of nature.”

“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”

“Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.”

“For all their compliments do verses pay? They mayn’t, yet these same poems make me gay.”

“The love of power or money or luxurious living are not the only things which are guided by popular thinking. We take our cue from people’s thinking even in the way we feel pain.”

“Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.”

“Think continually that all kinds of men, pursuits, and nations are dead.”

“If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumours; respond instead with, ‘Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more’.”

“So when you hear that even life and the like are indifferent, don’t become apathetic; and by the same token, when you’re advised to care about them, don’t become superficial and conceive a passion for externals.”

“ money is your only standard, then consider that, by your lights, someone who loses their nose does not suffer any harm.”

“He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon.”

“Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.”

“If you commit to philosophy, be prepared at once to be laughed at and made the butt of many snide remarks.”

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Leadership

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Leadership
Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Leadership

“To have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful.”

“Do little, if you want contentment of mind.”

“Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them – that it would upset you to lose them.”

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”

“Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.”

“Let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way and to have no suspicion or hatred.”

“To accept without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.”

“You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.”

“What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.
Each day provides its own gifts.”

“To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice.”

“No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.”

“People with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold; people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions.”

“Anger cannot be dishonest.”

“Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.”

“When you wish to delight yourself, think of the virtues of those who live with you; for instance, the activity of one, the modesty of another, the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth.”

“Nothing should be done without a purpose.”

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Friendship

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Friendship
Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Friendship

“The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as if it were the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.”

“Even the smallest thing should be done with reference to an end.”

“My city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome; but so far as I am a man, it is the world.”

“Stick to what’s in front of you – idea, action, utterance.”

“Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.”

“What is your art? To be good.”

“Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life.”

“Give yourself a gift: the present moment. “

“He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.”

“What illusion about myself do I entertain?”

“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?”

“The rational animal is consequently also a social animal.”

“Resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.”

“Glory’s an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather.”

“To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness.”

“Poverty is the mother of crime.”

““I am unhappy, because this has happened to me.” Not so: say, “I am happy, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.”“

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Corruption

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Corruption
Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Corruption

“A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”

“Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly. Epictetus”

“When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to yourself and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts.”

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

“Turn your desire to stone. Quench your appetites. Keep your mind centered on itself.”

“Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.”

“A man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgment on another man’s acts.”

“No man steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. Heraclitus”

“To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it.”

“It is in changing that we find purpose. Heraclitus”

“On the occasion of every act ask yourself, “How is this with respect to me? Will I regret it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone”

“Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.”

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

“Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things. Heraclitus”

“He who is afraid of pain will sometimes also be afraid of some of the things that will happen in the world, and even this is impiety. And he who pursues pleasure will not abstain from injustice, and this is plainly impiety.”

“Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right. They cannot be guided by your views, only their own; so if their views are wrong, they are the ones who suffer insofar as they are misguided.”

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Ambition

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Ambition
Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Ambition

“I see no virtue that is opposed to justice; but I see a virtue that is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.”

“Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion of every impression on the soul, apply to it the principles of physics, ethics, and dialectics (logic).”

“If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist?”

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surely… None of them can hurt me. Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people… It will keep you from doing anything useful. Why do you not rather act than complain?”

“‘My brother is unfair to me.’ Well then, keep up your side of the relationship; don’t concern yourself with his behaviour, only with what you must do to keep your will in tune with nature.”

“In like manner view also the other epochs of time and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts soon fell and were resolved into the elements.”

“Is a world without shameless people possible? No. So this person you’ve just met is one of them. Get over it.”

“Look not round at the depraved morals of others, but run straight along the line without deviating from it.”

“Well, what will my profession in the community be?’ Whatever position you are equipped to fill, so long as you preserve the man of trust and integrity.”

“Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.”

“Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”

“To investigate and analyze, with understanding and logic, the principles we ought to live by.”

“Why are we still lazy, indifferent and dull? Why do we look for excuses to avoid training and exercising our powers of reason?”

“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 Anger Quote

Marcus Aurelius Anger Quote
Marcus Aurelius Anger Quote

“Because what is a human being? Part of a community – the community of gods and men, primarily, and secondarily that of the city we happen to inhabit, which is only a microcosm of the universe in toto.”

“The way he handled the material comforts that fortune had supplied him in such abundance – without arrogance and without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of them. If not, he didn’t miss them.”

“For what does reason purport to do? “Establish what is true, eliminate what is false and suspend judgement in doubtful cases”.”

“To rest in these principles only: the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe; and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and daimon: for there is no man who will compel me to this.”

“A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.”

“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.”

“From Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by anything; and cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness.”

“It is a proper work of a man to be benevolent to his own kind, to despise the movements of the senses, to form a just judgment of plausible appearances, and to take a survey of the nature of the universe and of the things that happen in it.”

“Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it, whether alone or in company.”

“Constantly recall those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind: then think, where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale.”