Marcus Aurelius

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. (Hays translation)

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.

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.

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.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. (Hays translation)

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. (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)

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)

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)

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)

Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (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.

Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. (Hays translation)

Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. (Hays translation)

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 Gk., i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.

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.

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)

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.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart.

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

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

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

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