“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.”
0 likes
Author detail
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
Showing 41-60 of 144
“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.”
0 likes
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life”
0 likes
“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.”
0 likes
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
0 likes
“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.”
0 likes
“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
0 likes
“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.”
0 likes
“Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”
0 likes
“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”
0 likes
“Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.”
0 likes
“In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exi...”
0 likes
“Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.”
0 likes
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
0 likes
“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to...”
0 likes
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”
0 likes
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-de...”
0 likes
“Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash awa...”
0 likes
“All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.”
0 likes
“All things fade and quickly turn to myth.”
0 likes
“What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.”
0 likes