MA

Marcus Aurelius

Roman Emperor & Stoic Philosopher
Philosophy · Ancient

Quotes

What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it. (Hays translation)
He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.
There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return. (Hays translation)
Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich. (Hays translation)
Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)
Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. (Hays translation)
Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.
Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. (Hays translation)
From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.
Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.