"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it."

"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."

"You have power over your mind not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

"The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it."

"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."

"Loss is nothing else but change,and change is Natures delight."

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world."

"Each day provides its own gifts."

"Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so."

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."

"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."

"Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be."

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

"There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with."

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

"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."

"When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ..."

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts."

"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."

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

"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."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?"

"If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed."

"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 opinion of himself than on the opinion of others."

"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."

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking."

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural."

"The best revenge is not to be like your enemy."

"Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

"When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you."

"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."

"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."

"Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good."

"Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."

"Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look."

"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness."

"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."

"Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them."

"Though you break your heart, men will go on as before."

"Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things."

"Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power."

"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."

"Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?"

"Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams."

"Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil."

"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."

"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."

"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."

"Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back."

"Confine yourself to the present."

"Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited."

"Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them."

"The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time."

"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming—in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you—means a loss of opportunity for some other task."

"Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been."

"Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish."

"Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it."

"Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can— if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you."

"No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? ... It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have."

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall."

"Misfortune nobly born is good fortune."

"Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew."

"Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?' You would be ashamed to confess it! And then remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present, and the power of this is much diminished if you take it in isolation and call your mind to task if it thinks that it cannot stand up to it when taken on its own."

"Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig."

"A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others."

"Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not."

"In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors."

"Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?"

"It loved to happen."

"Stop wandering about! You aren't likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or the anthologies you've collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life's purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue-if you care for yourself at all-and do it while you can."

"The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere."

"A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something."

"Remember two things: i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period; ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have you cannot lose."

"From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition."

"Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside."

"How unlucky I am that this should happen to me. But not at all. Perhaps, say how lucky I am that I am not broken by what has happened, and I am not afraid of what is about to happen. For the same blow might have stricken anyone, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation and complaint."

"Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground."

"That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee"

"Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned to you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return."

"Neither worse then or better is a thing made by being praised."

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly."

"So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere."

"Everything that happens, happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so."

"Do not be ashamed of help."

"You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, "What are your thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that."

"Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee."

"No one loses any other life than the one he now lives, nor does one live any other life than that which he will lose."

"In your actions, don't procrastinate. In your conversations, don't confuse. In your thoughts, don't wander. In your soul, don't be passive or aggressive. In your life, don't be all about business."

"Men exist for the sake of one another."

"Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass."

"Kindness is unconquerable, so long as it is without flattery or hypocrisy. For what can the most insolent man do to you, if you contrive to be kind to him, and if you have the chance gently advise and calmly show him what is right...and point this out tactfully and from a universal perspective. But you must not do this with sarcasm or reproach, but lovingly and without anger in your soul."

"It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance."

"As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first."

"When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it."

"It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.' No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.' Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it without pain. So why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it?"

"You should leave another’s wrong where it lies."

"Accept humbly: let go easily."

"No more roundabout discussion of what makes good man. Be one!"

"You must compose your life action by action, and be satisfied if each action achieves its own end as best can be: and no one can prevent you from that achievement."

"All that you see will soon perish; those who witness this perishing will soon perish themselves. Die in extreme old age or die before your time — it will all be the same."

"Man’s joy is to do man’s proper work. And work proper to man is benevolence to his own kind, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, diagnosis of the impressions he can trust, contemplation of universal nature and all things thereby entailed."

"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."

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own… And so none of them can hurt me."

"I have no cause to hurt myself: I have never consciously hurt anyone else."

"You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think."

"Whatever anyone does or says, I must be a good man. It is as if an emerald, or gold or purple, were always saying: ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must be an emerald and keep my own colour.’"

"Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought ‘I am hurt’: remove the thought ‘I am hurt’, and the hurt itself is removed."

"When someone does you some wrong, you should consider immediately what judgement of good or evil led him to wrong you. When you see this, you will pity him, and not feel surprise or anger. — Meditations. 7.26 (Hammond trans.)"

"Love the art which you have learnt, and take comfort in it."

"Do not dream of possession of what you do not have: rather reflect on the greatest blessings in what you do have, and on their account remind yourself how much they would have been missed if they were not there."

"Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts. So dye your own"

"Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows — the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues — and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready to hand."

"It’s all in how you perceive it. You’re in control. You can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point."

"Love only what falls your way and is fated for you. What could suit you more than that? — Meditations. 7.57 (Hammond trans.)"

"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."

"Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will have forgotten you."

"Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging."

"Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging."

"Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence."

"Take care that you never treat the misanthropic as they treat mankind."

"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly."

"Men are born for the sake of each other. So either teach or tolerate."

"Not possible to study. But possible to rein in arrogance; possible to triumph over pleasures and pains; possible to rise above mere glory; possible not to be angry with the unfeeling and the ungrateful, and even, yes, to care for them."

"It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own."

"Today I escaped from all bothering circumstances—or rather I threw them out. They were nothing external, but inside me, just my own judgements."

"Whenever you meet someone, ask yourself first this immediate question: ‘What beliefs does this person hold about the good and bad in life?’"

"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."

"A bitter cucumber? Throw it away. Brambles in the path? Go round them. That is all you need, without going on to ask, ‘So why are these things in the world anyway?’"

"You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all."

"Allow some leisure in your life."

"Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions."

"Many lumps of incense on the same altar. One crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference."

"If you can, show them the better way. If you cannot, remember that this is why you have the gift of kindness. The gods too are kind to such people, and in their benevolence even help them achieve some ends — health, wealth, fame."

"It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed."

"Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good."

"Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don’t you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like can’t? And yet you still settle for less."

"Because most of what we say and do is not essential. Ask yourself at every moment, Is this necessary?"

"Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone."

"Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?"

"It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own."

"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."

"All of them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep us away. So make your choice straightforwardly, once and for all, and stick to it. Choose what’s best. Best is what benefits me. As a rational being? Then follow through. Or just as an animal? Then say so and stand your ground without making a show of it. (Just make sure you’ve done your homework first.)"

"No one can lose either the past or the future — how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?"

"Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."

"Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people, when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good."

"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."

"When someone does you wrong, do not judge things as he to them or would like you to interpret them. Just see them as they are, in plain truth."

"If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance."

"No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good."

"Nothing has meaning to my mind except its own actions. Which are within its own control. And it’s only the immediate ones that matter. Its past and future actions too are meaningless."

"Another does wrong. What is that to me? Let him see to it: he has his own disposition, his own action."

"When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind."

"Remember how long you have been putting this off, how many times you have been given a period of grace by the gods and not used it. It is high time now for you to understand … if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return."

"It is crazy to want what is impossible. And impossible for the wicked not to do so."

"If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it."

"The praise of the many, or power, or wealth, or the enjoyment of pleasure. All these things may seem to suit for a little while, but they can suddenly take control and carry you away. So you, I repeat, must simply and freely choose the better and hold to it."

"Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos."

"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."

"Failure to read what is happening in another’s soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend to the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy."

"No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished."

"No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life."

"Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them."

"Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there."

"Change: nothing inherently bad in the process, nothing inherently good in the result."

"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit."

"To pursue the impossible is madness: and it is impossible for bad men not to act in character."

"The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you’ll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus. The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy."

"So one should pass through this tiny fragment of time in tune with nature, and leave it gladly, as an olive might fall when ripe, blessing the earth which bore it and grateful to the tree which gave it growth."

"When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic—what defines a human being—is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep. And it’s the characteristic activity that’s the more natural one—more innate and more satisfying."

"‘It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.’ No, you should rather say: ‘It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.’"

"You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it5 can. No one can keep that from happening."

"At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: ‘I am getting up for a man’s work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?’ ‘But this is more pleasant.’ Were you then born for pleasure — all for feeling, not for action?"

"Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it? You’ll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present—and even that can be minimized. Just mark o its limits. And if your mind tries to claim that it can’t hold out against that … well, then, heap shame upon it."

"They cannot admire you for intellect. Granted — but there are many other qualities of which you cannot say, ‘but that is not the way I am made’. So display those virtues which are wholly in your own power — integrity, dignity, hard work, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude? And yet you are still content to lag behind."

"Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one."

"These can impede some activity, yes, but they form no impediments to my impulse or my disposition, because here there is conditional commitment and the power of adaptation. The mind adapts and turns round any obstacle to action to serve its objective: a hindrance to a given work is turned to its furtherance, an obstacle in a given path becomes an advance."

"God did not intend my happiness to rest with someone else."

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."

"‘There was a time when I met luck at every turn.’ But luck is the good fortune you determine for yourself: and good fortune consists in good inclinations of the soul, good impulses, good actions."

"Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself."

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing."

"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."

"A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions."

"Sober up, recall yourself, shake off sleep once more: realize they were mere dreams that troubled you, and now that you are awake again look on these things as you would have looked on a dream."

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."

"How to understand your own good: the lover of glory takes it to be the reactions of others; the lover of pleasure takes it to be his own passive experience; the intelligent man sees it as his own action."

"You have the power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."