Marcus Aurelius

And if all men re­fuse to be­lieve that he lives a simple, mod­est, and con­ten­ted life, he is neither angry with any of them, nor does he de­vi­ate from the way which leads to the end of life, to which a man ought to come pure, tran­quil, ready to de­part, and without any com­pul­sion per­fectly re­con­ciled to his lot.

and in an old wo­man and an old man he will be able to see a cer­tain ma­tur­ity and come­li­ness; and the at­tract­ive love­li­ness of young per­sons he will be able to look on with chaste eyes; and many such things will present them­selves, not pleas­ing to every man, but to him only who has be­come truly fa­mil­iar with nature and her works.

of de­sire be­longs both to wild beasts and to men who have made them­selves into wo­men, and to a Phalaris and a Nero

For noth­ing is so pro­duct­ive of el­ev­a­tion of mind as to be able to ex­am­ine meth­od­ic­ally and truly every ob­ject which is presen­ted to thee in life, and al­ways to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of uni­verse this is, and what kind of use everything per­forms in it, and what value everything has with ref­er­ence to the whole

to look to noth­ing else, not even for a mo­ment, ex­cept to reason; and to be al­ways the same, in sharp pains, on the oc­ca­sion of the loss of a child, and in long ill­ness;

and he never showed an­ger or any other pas­sion, but was en­tirely free from pas­sion, and also most af­fec­tion­ate

all this is already ex­tin­guished. We must make haste then, not only be­cause we are daily nearer to death, but also be­cause the con­cep­tion of things and the un­der­stand­ing of them cease first.

man when he has done a good act, does not call out for oth­ers to come and see, but he goes on to an­other act, as a vine goes on to pro­duce again the grapes in sea­son.

learned free­dom of will and un­devi­at­ing stead­i­ness of pur­pose; and to look to noth­ing else, not even for a mo­ment, ex­cept to reason; and to be al­ways the same, in sharp pains, on the oc­ca­sion of the loss of a child, and in long ill­ness; and to see clearly in a liv­ing ex­ample that the same man can be both most res­ol­ute and yield­ing, and not peev­ish in giv­ing his in­struc­tion;

not to meddle with other people’s af­fairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.