Talk:Marcus Aurelius

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Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Marcus Aurelius. --Antiquary 18:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Most statements attributed to Aurelius, where genuine, are very likely to be from translations of the Meditations, though different translators may phrase things differently, and sometimes with very different connotations.

• Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

• How much more grievous are the consequences of an event than the causes of it.

• Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

• If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; if we begin with doubts, and are patient, we shall end in certainties.

• 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.

• In life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution: but thou art not the cause of neither. Depart then satisfied; for he also who releases thee is satisfied.

• 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.
  • See also: More quotes on the Future

• One can live well even in a palace.
  • (In this statement emphasis is placed upon a "good life" of good actions, rather than a life of dangerous excesses, shallow pursuits and unjust oppressions)

• Living calls for the art of the wrestler, not the dancer. Staying on your feet is all; there is no need for pretty steps.

• The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature.

• Think of the totality of all Being, and what a mite of it is yours; think of all Time, and the brief fleeting instant of it that is allotted to yourself; think of Destiny, and how puny a part of it you are.

• Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

• We are all working together to one end, some with knowledge and design, and others without knowing what they do.