Marcus Aurelius

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

“Manusia mampu melakukan semua yang Tuhan ingin ia lakukan.”

“Jangan pernah menyakiti orang lain dengan perbuatan mau pun kata-kata.”

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

“But if anything in thy own dispositiongives thee pain, who hinders thee from correcting thy opinion? And even if thou art pained because thou art not doing some particular thing which seems to thee to be right, why dost thou not rather act than complain?- But some insuperable obstacle is in the way?- Do not be grieved then, for the cause of its not being done depends not on thee.- But it is not worth while to live if this cannot be done.- Take thy departure then from life contentedly, just as he dies who is in full activity, and well pleased too with the things which are obstacles.”

“How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.”

“That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.- Book VI, 54.”

“If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them.”

“Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul?”

“Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.- Be it so: but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, by the gods: but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.”

“Unhappy am I because this has happened to me.- Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.”

“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.”

“That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.”

“It loved to happen.”

“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”

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

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

“Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .”

“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”

“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.”

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

“You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.”

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying...or busy with other assignments. Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: "To do what needs doing." Look inward. Don't let the true nature of anything elude you. Before long, all existing things will be transformed, to rise like smoke (assuming all things become one), or be dispersed in fragments...to move from one unselfish act to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness...when jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep going back to it.”

“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.”