Top 60 Marcus Aurelius Quotes (2024 Update)

Who Was Marcus Aurelius?

Before knowing about Marcus Aurelius quotes it is very important for you to know about Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor who ruled from 161 to 180 AD. He was the last of the five emperors who are called the 'Five Good Emperors'. He was a practitioner of Stoic philosophy. He composed an untitled book which is now known as 'Meditations'. He was born on 26 April 121 AD in Rome, Italy and died on 17 March 180 AD in Cimmeria.

check also these Socrates, Plato and Aristotle Quotes.

Marcus Aurelius Quotes

1. “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ― Marcus Aurelius

2. “A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.” ― Marcus Aurelius

3. “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.” ― Marcus Aurelius

4. “Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.” ― Marcus Aurelius

5. “All men are made one for another: either then teach them better or bear with them.” ― Marcus Aurelius

6. “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” ― Marcus Aurelius

7. “Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?” ― Marcus Aurelius

8. “To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.” ― Marcus Aurelius

9. “How soon will time cover all things.” ― Marcus Aurelius

10. “I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm.” ― Marcus Aurelius

11. “To live happily is an inward power of the soul.” ― Marcus Aurelius

12. “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

13. “Dream big dreams; only big dreams have the power to move mens souls...” ― Marcus Aurelius

14. "Soon you will be dead and none of it will matter" ― Marcus Aurelius

15. “Live every day as if thy last.” ― Marcus Aurelius

16. “This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.” ― Marcus Aurelius

17. “Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.” ― Marcus Aurelius

18. “The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.” ― Marcus Aurelius

19. “If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.” ― Marcus Aurelius

20. “Confine yourself to the present.” ― Marcus Aurelius

21. “Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.” ― Marcus Aurelius

22. “No man is happy who does not think himself so.” ― Marcus Aurelius

23. “Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.” ― Marcus Aurelius

24. “Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.” ― Marcus Aurelius

25. “Do not be ashamed of help.” ― Marcus Aurelius

26. “A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.” ― Marcus Aurelius

27. “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” ― Marcus Aurelius

28. “What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.” ― Marcus Aurelius

29. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

30. “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ― Marcus Aurelius

31. “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” ― Marcus Aurelius

32. “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ― Marcus Aurelius

33. “Time is a river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” ― Marcus Aurelius

34. “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature.” ― Marcus Aurelius

35. “We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.” ― Marcus Aurelius

36. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

37. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” ― Marcus Aurelius

38. “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” ― Marcus Aurelius

39. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

40. “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” ― Marcus Aurelius

41. “The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” ― Marcus Aurelius

42. “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.” ― Marcus Aurelius

43. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

44. “Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” ― Marcus Aurelius

45. “It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.” ― Marcus Aurelius

46. “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.” ― Marcus Aurelius

47. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

48. “Do not act as if you had a thousand years to live.” ― Marcus Aurelius

49. “Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.” ― Marcus Aurelius

50. “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.” ― Marcus Aurelius

51. “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-deception and ignorance.” ― Marcus Aurelius

52. “Each day provides its own gifts.” ― Marcus Aurelius

53. “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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

54. “What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” ― Marcus Aurelius

55. “Think of what you have rather than of what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.” ― Marcus Aurelius

56. “Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives.” ― Marcus Aurelius

57.  “Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.” ― Marcus Aurelius

58. “Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.” ― Marcus Aurelius

59. “To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.” ― Marcus Aurelius

60. “No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.” ― Marcus Aurelius