Author of quotes: Marcus Aurelius

Never consider it useful for yourself that it will ever prompt you to break a promise, forget shame, hate someone, suspect, curse, be a hypocrite, or desire something that is hidden behind walls and castles. After all, the one who has given preference to his reason, his genius and the service of his virtue does not put on a tragic mask, does not utter lamentations, does not need either solitude or crowds. He will live - and this is the most important thing - without pursuing anything and without avoiding anything. He is not at all worried about whether his soul will remain in a bodily shell for more or less time, and when the moment of parting with life comes, he will leave with the same light heart with which he would carry out something else from what he was doing. what can be done with dignity and honor. After all, all his life he only thinks about not allowing his soul to descend to a state unworthy of a rational being called to citizenship.

Do not act against your will, nor in conflict with the common good, nor as a person rash or influenced by some passion. Do not clothe your thoughts in pompous forms, do not get carried away by either long-winded speech or busy work. Let the deity in you be the leader of a being courageous, mature, devoted to the interests of the state; a Roman, invested with power, feeling himself in office, like a man who, not needing an oath or a guarantor, with a light heart awaits the call to leave life. And your soul will be light, and you will not need either outside help or that peace of mind that depends on others.

The approval of not all people is valuable, but only those living according to nature. He [the man who never abandons his care to be among the best] never loses sight of what those who live differently from the way they live at home and outside the home, at night and during the day, and with whom, are like. and what kind of friendship they lead. And he does not value the praise of people who do not satisfy themselves.

A person who never abandons concern to be among the best is a priest and helper of the gods.

You should accustom yourself only to such thoughts, regarding which, in response to a sudden question: “What are you thinking about now?”, you could frankly answer that it was about such and such. These thoughts are filled with sincerity and benevolence and are worthy of a sociable being who abhors sensual pleasures, pleasures, obstinacy, envy, suspicion and everything that makes you blush when you realize that it was in you.

The time of human life is a moment; its essence is eternal flow; feeling - vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything related to the body is like a stream, everything related to the soul is like a dream and smoke. Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land; posthumous glory - oblivion. But what can lead to the path? Nothing but philosophy

Secondly: the most durable and the dead, having only begun to live, lose, in essence, the same thing. The present is all that can be lost, because that is all you have, and no one is deprived of what they do not have.

Even if you expected to live three thousand years and thirty thousand more, you must still remember that no one loses another life than the one he lives out, and no one lives out another life except the one he loses. Therefore, the longest life is no different from the shortest. After all, the present is equal for everyone, and therefore the losses are equal - and they are reduced to just a moment. No one can lose either the past or the future. For who could take away from me what I do not have?

There is nothing more pathetic than a person who measures everything up and down, trying, as the poet says, “to measure the expanses of the earth, going underground,” to unravel the secret of the souls of the people around him, but not realizing that for him communication only with his inner genius and honest service to him. The last thing is to protect him from passions, recklessness and dissatisfaction with the affairs of gods and people. The deeds of the gods are venerable for their perfection, the deeds of people are dear to us due to our kinship with them. But sometimes the latter arouse a certain kind of pity: when ignorance of good and evil is manifested in them - an ugliness no less than the inability to distinguish between white and black.

What is death? If you take it by itself and abstract from everything that is invented about it, you will immediately be convinced that it is nothing more than the action of nature. To be afraid of the actions of nature is childish; death is not only an action of nature, but also an action useful to it

How quickly everything disappears: the very bodies in the world, the memory of them in eternity! What is everything perceived by the senses, especially that which attracts us with pleasure, or repels us with pain, or is glorified by vanity? How insignificant, despicable, base, mortal and dead all this is!

You should do everything, talk about everything and think as if every moment could be your last. If gods exist, then leaving the ranks of people is not at all scary: after all, the gods will not plunge you into evil.

Curb your thirst for book knowledge so as not to grumble when death comes. When leaving this life, keep peace of mind, giving the gods sincere, heartfelt gratitude.

It is not easy to point to someone who would become unhappy because he was inattentive to what was happening in someone else's soul. But he who does not follow the movements of his own soul will inevitably be unhappy.