Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

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.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

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.

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

Nothing happens to any thing which that thing is not made by nature to bear.

How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

Remember this-that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

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

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.

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.