Marcus Aurelius Quotes About Life, Death, Stoicism and Leadership

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

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

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

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

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Death is a release from the impressions of sense, and from impulses that make us their puppets, from the vagaries of the mind, and the hard service of the flesh.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

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.

The act of dying is also one of the acts of life.

All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

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

Remember that no man loses other life than that which he lives, nor lives other than that which he loses.

A bump in the road is either an obstacle to be fought, or an opportunity to be enjoyed. It’s all up to you.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Your life is what your thoughts make it.