Find all the Marcus Aurelius quotes used throughout my blog. Use this tool for your reference and inspiration. Be aware of any false Marcus Aurelius quotes out there. Use Gregory Sadler’s video to help you find and recognize them, find it here.
“That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig tree for secreting juice. (Anyway, before very long you’ll both be death – death and soon forgotten.)”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 4.6
Post: On Dealing with Frustrating people
“To stand up straight – not straightened.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 3.5
Post: On Believing in Yourself, How to Know Yourself
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.6
Post: On Dealing with the General Public
“From Rusticus: “To read attentively – not to be satisfied with ‘just getting the gist of it’.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.7
Post: On Reading
“To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.16
Post: What is Justice, What is Stoicism, How to Act Like a Stoic, What is the Stoic God
“If you seek tranquillity, do less.”
Democritus, Frg. B.3, From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4.24
Post: What is Temperance
“The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”
Democritus, Frg. B.115, From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4.3
Post: On Change
“Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What’s closer to nature’s heart?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.18
Post: On Change
“And if you can’t stop prizing a lot of other things? Then you’ll never be free.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.16
Post: Become Financially Independent with Stoicism
“Choose not to be harmed – and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed – and you haven’t been.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4.7
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism, How to Deal with Criticism Through Stoicism, How to forgive Like a Stoic
“The best revenge is not to be like that.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.6
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism
“Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.9
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism
“Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him, for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2.1
Post: Friendship and Growth Through a Stoic Lens
“And why is it so hard when things go against you? If it’s imposed by nature, accept it gladly and stop fighting it. And if not, work out what your own nature requires, and aim at that, even if it brings you no glory. None of us is forbidden to pursue our own good.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.16
Post: How to Know Yourself
“Learn to ask of all action, ‘Why are they doing that?’ Starting with your own.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.37
Post: The Sword of Damocles
“If an action or utterance is appropriate, then it’s appropriate for you. Don’t be put off by other people’s comments and criticism. If it’s right to say or do it, then it’s the right thing for you to do or say. The others obey their own lead, follow their own impulses. Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature – along the road they share.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5.3
Post: How to Deal with Criticism Through Stoicism, How to Say No
“So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine. What is done to me is ordained by nature, what I do by my own.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5.25
Post: How to Deal with Criticism Through Stoicism
“Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.53
Post: How to Deal with Criticism Through Stoicism
“Three relationships
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8.27
i. with the body you inhabit
ii. with the divine, the cause of everything in all things
iii. with the people around you
Post: How our Mirror Fails to Reflect
“People exist for one another. You can instruct or endure them.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8.59
Post: How our Mirror Fails to Reflect, How to be an example
“Self-reliance, always. And Cheerfulness.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.16
Post: How our Mirror Fails to Reflect
“How to act: Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people’s help. Or serenity supplied by others.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3.5
Post: How to Enjoy Life as a Stoic
“If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy, and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged as if you might have to give it back at any moment – if you embrace this without fear or expectations – can find fulfilment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance) – then your life will be happy. – No one can prevent that.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3.13
Post: How to Enjoy Life as a Stoic
“Look inward. Don’t let the true nature or value of anything elude you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.3
Post: How to Resist Temptations Like a Stoic: Taming Dubai
“You cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or lie another one that the one you’re losing.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2.14
Post: How to Resist Temptations Like a Stoic: Taming Dubai
“Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it. Some of what now exists is already gone. Change and flux constantly remake the world, just as the incessant progression of time remakes eternity.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.15
Post; The Collective Existential Crisis
“Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone – those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5.23
Post; The Collective Existential Crisis
“Look at the past – empire after empire – and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.49
Post: Investing Like a Stoic
“To read attentively – not to be satisfied with ‘just getting the gist of it’.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.7
Post: How to Act Like a Stoic
“To investigate and analyse, with understanding and logic, the principles we ought to live by. Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.9
Post: How to Deal with Your Emotions
“Character and self-control.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.1
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Not to waste time on nonsense.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.6
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.15
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2.6
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Your ability to control your thoughts – treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions – false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submissions to the divine.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3.9
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.13
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Look inward. Don’t let the true nature or value of anything elude you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.3
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people – unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3.4
Post: How to Overcome Self-Doubt
“You participate in a society by your existence. Then participate in its life through your actions – all your actions. Any actions not directed toward a social end (directly or indirectly) is a disturbance to your life, an obstacle to wholeness, a source of dissension. Like the man in the Assembly – a faction to himself, always out of step with the majority.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.23
Post: How to Be Alone
“And then you might see what the life of the good man is like – someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4.25
Post: How to Be Alone
“There you are still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5.1
Post: How to Love
“The things ordained for you – teach yourself to be at one with those. And the people who share them with you – treat them with love. With real love.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.39
Post: How to Love
“To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater Harmony.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.57
Post: How to Love
“Don’t gussy up your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 3.5
Post: Stoic Quotes
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. If the gods exist, then to abandon human beings is not frightening; the gods would never subject you to harm. And if they don’t exist, or don’t care what happens to us, what would be the point of living in a world without gods or Providence? But they do exist, they do care what happens to us, and everything a person needs to avoid real harm they have places within him. If there were anything harmful on the other side of death, they would have made sure that the ability to avoid it was within you. If if doesn’t harm your character, how can it harm your life?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2.11
Post: Stoicism the Wrong Way: A Psychological Perspective
“Characteristics of the rational soul: Self-perception, self-examination, and the power to make of itself whatever it wants.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.1
Post: How to Reflect Like a Stoic
“To put up with discomforts and not make demands.”
Marcus aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.5
Post: How to Reflect Like a Stoic
“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter… Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: ‘to do what needs doing.’”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.2
Post: Why Death Needs Rebranding
“Possibilities:
i. To keep on living (you should be used to it by now)
ii. To end it (it was your choice, after all)
iii. To die (having met your obligations) Those are the only options. Reason for optimism.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.22
Post: Why Death Needs Rebranding
“And for introducing me to Epictetus’s lectures – and loaning me his own copy.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1.7
Post: The Stoic Reading List for Beginners
“My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature – the wrong thing – the wrong way – or at the wrong time.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.20
Post: How to Deal with Fear Like a Stoic
“That kindness is invincible, provided it’s sincere—not ironic or an act.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 IX
Post: How to Forgive Like a Stoic
“If they’ve injured you, then they’re the ones who suffer for it. But have they?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.38
Post: How to Forgive Like a Stoic
“Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of – and how judiciously they judge themselves.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.18
Post: How to Deal With the Imposter Syndrome Through Stoicism
“Don’t pay attention to other people’s minds. Look straight ahead, where nature is leading you – nature in general, through the things that happen to you; and your own nature, through your own actions.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.55
Post: What is Success: A Stoic View
“And with that in mind I have no right, as a part, to complain about what is assigned me by the whole. Because what benefits the whole can’t harm the parts, and the whole does nothing that doesn’t benefit it.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.6
Post: How to Respect your Character
“The mind is that which is roused and directed by itself. It makes of itself what it chooses. It makes what it chooses of its own experience.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.8
Post: How Externals Crush Who we Are
“Remember: you shouldn’t be surprised that a fig tree produces figs, not the world what it produces. A good doctor isn’t surprised when his patients have fevers, or a helmsman when the wind blows against him.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8.15
Post: How to Manage Expectations Like a Stoic
“When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they’re misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard?”
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book 7.26
