Marcus Aurelius

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

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

Live out your life in peace, be silent, and be content with what is given you.

Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrestrial life: a pious disposition and social acts.

The duration of a man's life is but a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure, the course of the body headlong, the soul fickle, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful.

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 object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.

Everything is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

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

The universe is transformation; life is opinion.

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

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.

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in that it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.

The universe is change; life is opinion.

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

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.