A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
Marcus Aurelius
A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
Marcus Aurelius
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
Marcus Aurelius
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
Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.
Marcus Aurelius
And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
Marcus Aurelius
Anger cannot be dishonest.
Marcus Aurelius
Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
Marcus Aurelius
Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.
Marcus Aurelius
Be content to seem what you really are.
Marcus Aurelius
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
Marcus Aurelius
Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
Marcus Aurelius
Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
Marcus Aurelius
Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
Marcus Aurelius
Confine yourself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
Marcus Aurelius
Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.
Marcus Aurelius
Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
Marcus Aurelius
Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
Marcus Aurelius
Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
Marcus Aurelius
Each day provides its own gifts.
Marcus Aurelius
Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.
Marcus Aurelius
Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
Marcus Aurelius
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
Marcus Aurelius
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius
Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.
Marcus Aurelius
Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.
Marcus Aurelius
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
Marcus Aurelius
Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, "This is a misfortune" but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."
Marcus Aurelius
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Marcus Aurelius
How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.
Marcus Aurelius
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
Marcus Aurelius
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
Marcus Aurelius
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus Aurelius
Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.
Marcus Aurelius
Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.
Marcus Aurelius
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
Marcus Aurelius
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
Marcus Aurelius
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
Marcus Aurelius
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
Marcus Aurelius
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
Marcus Aurelius
Men exist for the sake of one another.
Marcus Aurelius
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Marcus Aurelius
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
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
Marcus Aurelius
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
Marcus Aurelius
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Marcus Aurelius
Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.
Marcus Aurelius
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
Marcus Aurelius
Poverty is the mother of crime.
Marcus Aurelius
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Marcus Aurelius
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
Marcus Aurelius
The act of dying is one of the acts of life.
Marcus Aurelius
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Marcus Aurelius
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.
Marcus Aurelius
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
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.
Marcus Aurelius
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marcusaure121534.html
The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.
Marcus Aurelius
The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.
Marcus Aurelius
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.
Marcus Aurelius
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.
Marcus Aurelius
Time is a sort of 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
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
Marcus Aurelius
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
Marcus Aurelius
To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
Marcus Aurelius
To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.
Marcus Aurelius
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.
Marcus Aurelius
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.
Marcus Aurelius
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
What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.
Marcus Aurelius
Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.
Marcus Aurelius
When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.
Marcus Aurelius
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
Where a man can live, he can also live well.
Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
Marcus Aurelius
Your life is what your thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD)
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aurelius.htm
Roman Emperor and Stoic, the author of Meditations in twelve books. Its first printing appeared in English in 1634. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius the celebrated Pax Romana collapsed - perhaps this made the emperor the most forbearing of all Stoics. An important feature of the philosophy was that everything will recur: the whole universe becomes fire and then repeats itself.
Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web. (from The Meditations)
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was born in Rome. He came from an aristocratic family long established in Spain. His father was Annius Verus. When only a small child, he caught the attention of the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) – a pedophile and his fellow countryman. He was appointed by the Emperor to priesthood in the year 129, and Hadrian also supervised his education, which was entrusted to the best professors of literature, rhetoric and philosophy of the time. His letters to one of the teachers, Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100 - 170), the foremost orator of his day, were found by Cardinal Mai in 1815.
Marcus Aurelius discovered Stoicism by the time he was 11 and from his early twenties he deserted his other studies for philosophy. The Emperor Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, adopted Marcus Aurelius as his son in 138. "He never bathed at odd hours," Marcus Aurelius said of him in Meditations, "or took a passion for building; never set up for a table connoisseur, and expert on textures and tints, or an authority on good looks... One might fairly apply to him what is recorded of Socrates, that he could either enjoy or leave things which most people find themselves too weak to abstain from, and too self-indulgent to enjoy." Antoninus Pius treated Aurelius as a confidant and helper throughout his reign; Marcus Aurelius also married his daughter, Faustina, in 139. He was admitted to the Senate, and then twice the consulship. In 147 he shared tribunician power with Antoninus. During this time he began composition of his Meditations, which he wrote in Greek in army camps. Thus Book I is headed 'This among the Quadi on the Gran', and Book II 'Written at Carnuntum'.
At the age of 40, in 161 Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne and shared his imperial power with his adopted brother Lucius Aurelius Verus. Useless and lazy, Verus was regarded as a kind of junior emperor; he died in 169. After Verus's death he ruled alone, until he admitted his own son, Commodus, to full participation in the government in 177.
As an emperor Marcus Aurelius was conservative and just by Roman standards. He was beset by internal disturbances – famine, earthquakes, fires, and plague – and by the external threat posed by the Germans in the north and the Parthians in the east.
However, Sir Edward Gobbon has praised the period of 'Five Good Emperors' – Narva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius – of which Marcus' own life spanned almost three-quarters: "If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus."
Toward the end of his reign, in 175, Marcus Aurelius was faced with a revolt by Avidius Cassius, the governor of Syria, who perhaps believed rumors that the Emperor had died. His head was sent to Marcus Aurelius. According to some sources, Faustina, Marcus' wife, may have been involved in this conspiracy. An epidemic of plague followed Cassius's army from the East. Year after year Aurelius tried to push barbarians back but witnessed the gradual crumbling of the Roman frontiers. In these times of disasters, he turned more and more to the study of Stoic philosophy.
The Latin writings of Marcus Aurelius, letters to a teacher, Fronto, are not interesting, but the "Writings to Himself", called Meditations, are remarkable. They are personal reflections and aphorisms, written for his own edification during a long career of public service, after marching or battle in the remote Danube. Meditations are valuable primarily as a personal document, what it is to be a Stoic. His opinions in central philosophical questions are very much similar to Epictetus's (c. 55-135 AD) teachings. Epictetus's two basic principles were: Endure and Abstain. He stressed that inner freedom is to be attained through submission to providence, and rigorous detachment from everything not in our power.
He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live. (from The Meditations)
Marcus Aurelius's melancholic writings reveal that the public duties depressed him and he wanted to retire to live a simple country life. After his death in Vindobona (now Vienna, Austria) on March 17, 180 the emperor's only son Commodus became Emperor and turned out to be one of the worst rulers. Marcus Aurelius's reputation is shadowed by his persecution of Christians. A devout adherent of the Roman religion, Marcus Aurelius considered the Christians fanatics, who don't die with stoic dignity.
"How lovely the soul that is prepared – when its hour comes to slough off this flesh – for extinctions, dispersion, or survival! But this readiness should result from a personal decision, not from sheer contrariness like the Christians..." Probably Marcus Aurelius knew very little about Christian beliefs. The fierce cruelty, with which the persecution was carried out in Gaul, was not consistent with his writings. However, Stoics had a profound influence upon both Neoplatonism and Christianity. Besides Meditations Aurelius left behind among others two Roman monuments, the column which commemorates his victories in the Marcomannic Wars and the equestrian statue on the Capitol.
Stoicism, named after the Stoa Poikile, a hall in Athens where it was first formulated around 300 BC by Zeno of Citium. Zeno's all writings are lost. The philosophy was developed by Cleanthes (331-232) and Chrysippus (280-207), who organized it into a system. Marcus Aurelius based his views in part on the later version, which was developed by the freed slave Epictetus (55-135). The Stoics were the first thoroughgoing pantheists: God is the universe, the universe is God. The wise and virtuous learns one's place in the scheme. According to Stoic Ethics, the goal of human existence is to live consistently with Nature, which means "consistently with Reason".
Meditations, or Writings to Himself (Ta eis heauton). First printed in 1559 in Zurich by Andreas Gesner with a Latin translation by William Xylander. Thereafter it has enjoyed a wide readership from poets to statesmen. Meditations contains 12 books, but while Book I offers a clear organization and unity, the others do not. Marcus Aurelius worked on his philosophical summary or pensées during the last years of his life while on campaign along the marshlands of the Danube. Among the central themes is man's fate to die and be forgotten. "What should be valued?", he asks, but sees not the answer in the rewards of glory. Aurelius had wanted to be untouched by passion, and generous by nature rather than by calculation. He had a firm sense of responsibility, but was perhaps more attracted to the Stoic ideal of the perfect man. When according to Stoicism humanity's whole duty was to discover how it might live in harmony with the order of Nature, Aurelius hoped sadly that it could also apply to him: "Even in a palace life may be lived well."
For further reading: Marcus Aurelius: His Life and His Works by A.S.L. Farquharson (1951); Marcus Aurelius by Anthony Birley (1987, original edition 1966); The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by R.B. Rutheford (1989); The Therapy of Desire by Martha C. Nussbaum (1994); The Roman Empire in Transition by Michael Grant (1994) - Note: in some sources Marcus Aurelius's birth date is April 16, 121 (Lexicon der Weltliteratur, ed. by Gero von Wilpert, 1988).
Selected works:
• Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Roman emperour, His Meditations Concerning Himself, 1635 (notes by Meric Casaubon)
• The Emperor Marcus Antoninus, His Conversation with Himself, 1701
• The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus, 1862 (tr. by George Long)
• Opera Inedits cum Epistulis Item Ineditis Antonni Pii M Aurelii L Veri et Appiani nec non Aliorum Veterum, 1815 - The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Lucius Verus, Antoninus Pius, and Various Friends (ed. C.R. Haines, 1920)
• The Communings with Himself by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 1916 (tr. by Charkes S. Haines)
• The Meditations of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, I-II, 1944 (2nd ed. 1952, ed. by A.S.L. Farquharson)
• Marcus Aurelius: Ad se ipsum libri XII, 1979 (ed. by J. Dalfen)
• The Emperors Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations, 2002 (tr. by David Hicks, C. Scot Hicks)
• Meditations, 2002 (tr. and introduction by Gregory Hays)
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