Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aureliuswas Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors. He was a practitioner of Stoicism, and his untitled writing, commonly known as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, is the most significant source of our modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth26 April 121
CityRome, Italy
littles found certainty
Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?
change order substance
Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which you see, and out of their substance will make other things and again other things... in order that the world may be ever new.
relation all-time following
Be mindful at all times of the following: the nature of the whole universe, the nature of the part that is me, the relation of the one to the other, the one so vast, the other so small.
study bless interest
I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.
air legs path
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath.
horse men broken
The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else...
mind rewards done
Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.
lying real men
There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.
lying character men
Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.
littles gone repent
On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.
art space looks
Continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time, that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?
order law citizens
And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen.
past mind endurance
Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'
art exercise opportunity
What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.