Marcus Aurelius

“If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it.”

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current.”

“How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks.”

“A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”

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

“Receive without conceit; release without struggle.”

“Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of and that it can't degrade your guiding intelligence.”

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

“Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back.”

“It is not he who refutes us that injures us, but our own conceit.”

“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 you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.”

“If you accomplish in your work the immediate task, that is enough. The general direction will care for itself.”

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

“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

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

“How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them.”

“Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind.”