Marcus Aurelius
Biography
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. During his reign, the empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire; Aurelius' general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. Aurelius fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, but the threat of the Germanic Tribes began to represent a troubling reality for the empire. A revolt in the east led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately. Marcus Aurelius' work Meditations, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a government of service and duty. It serves as an example of how Aurelius approached the Platonic ideal of a philosopher-king and how he symbolized much of what was best about Roman civilization.
Quotes from Marcus Aurelius
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
1
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
2
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
3
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
4
"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."
5
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
6
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.."
7
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."
8
"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."
9
"This is the mark of perfection of character — to spend each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending."
10
"Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing."
11
"Receive without pride, let go without attachment."
12
"In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business."
13
"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?"
14
"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."
15
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
16
"The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues."
232
"No man is happy who does not think himself so."
233
"But if there is no harm, to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself] for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature."
341
"The notions of matter and of space are inseparable. We derive the notion of space from matter and form. But we have no adequate conception either of matter or space. Matter in its ultimate resolution is as unintelligible as what men call mind, spirit, or by whatever other name they may express the power which makes itself known by acts."
342
"All things, all forms, are dissolved, and new forms appear. All living things undergo the change which we call death. If we call death an evil, then all change is an evil."
344
"A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means, as the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's actions must be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human family."
345
"A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all his energies to it; of course a good object. He who has not one object or purpose in life, cannot be one and the same all through his life."
346
"Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have."
347
"The end of a man is, as already explained, to live conformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind, and contentment."
348
"The obstacle is the way."
408
"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit."
415
"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
417
"A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions."
781