101+ Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations Bring Peace and Happiness

Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations: Aurelius, also known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He wrote one of the greatest works of philosophy – Meditations.

Meditation is an extraordinary book that helped Aurelius remain emotionally stable and even happy during periods of immense stress and war (he was one of the more successful leaders in military history). Here are some quotes from the book that helped him in this journey.

Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

It’s human nature to constantly wonder about the future and to regret about the past, often letting these thoughts distract us from enjoying the present moment. Luckily, there’s a way to achieve inner peace and live according to your values at the same time – it’s called stoicism.

If you’re not familiar with this ancient philosophy, it teaches us that by self-restraint, people can develop clear judgment and inner calm. It also emphasizes the fact that the path to happiness is accepting the present moment as it is.

Self Control

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ― Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Aurelius, Meditations Appreciation, Beautiful Life 

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

Happiness

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Truth 

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”― Marcus Aurelius , Meditations 

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” ― Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Revenge

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Fate, Love 

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Meditation of Marcus Aurelius Quotes

History and thought, wisdom 

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Death and Fear 

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

Future, Worry

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Inspirational Attitude 

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

RELATED: Marcus Aurelius Stoic Quotes Control Your Feelings

Open Mindedness, Prejudice 

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Confidence 

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius Meditations Quotes

Empathy, Honesty, Self-Awareness 

“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?” ― Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Goodness, Integrity

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Sanity

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Choice and Happiness

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Philosophy and Revenge

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Attitude, Injury, Perception

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Opinion and Philosophy

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Inspirational

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Anger

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Meditations Quotes

Inspirational

“Here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not “This is misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

RELATED: Short Happy Quotes For The Day to Enlighten The Feeling Of Happiness

Inner strength, self confidence

“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Goodness, Integrity, Morality

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

“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 you will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ― Marcus Aurelius 

Meditations Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?'” – Marcus Aurelius

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius

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

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Nature

“Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refluence, or ’twill be gone and nevermore within your reach.” – Marcus Aurelius

“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“Give yourself a gift: the present moment.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“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.” – Marcus Aurelius

Meditation Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” – Marcus Aurelius

“Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill… I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.” – Marcus Aurelius

Wise

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius

“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?” – Marcus Aurelius

“Do not be wise in words – be wise in deeds.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.” – Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Meditations By Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius 

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Incarnation: Mind over body

“You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Life, Act

“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

“What we do now echoes in eternity.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

RELATED: Enjoy Happy Moments Quotes and Share Happiness With Loved Ones

Opinion

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.

But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.

Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Thankfulness

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Philosophy

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Mindfulness, Perfection

“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Self Assurance, Self Containment

“For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

“The universe is changing; our life is what our thoughts make it.” ― Marcus Aurelius , Meditations 

“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Honesty and self Respect

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

Ambition

“A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.” ― Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ― Marcus Aurelius

“Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Receive without conceit, release without struggle.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Quotes

“Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Solitude

“It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Inspirational Life

“Life is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil.” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Goals in Life and Priorities

“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, 

Surprise

“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything that happens in life” ― Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Quotes Meditations

Character, Public Opinion

“If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Inspirational

“Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Philosophy and Truth

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Though you break your heart, men will go on as before.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius Quotes On Life

“Everything in any way beautiful has its beauty of itself, inherent and self-sufficient: praise is no part of it. At any rate, praise does not make anything better or worse. This applies even to the popular conception of beauty, as in material things or works of art. So does the truly beautiful need anything beyond itself?

No more than law, no more than truth, no more than kindness or integrity. Which of these things derives its beauty from praise, or withers under criticism? Does an emerald lose its quality if it is not praised? And what about gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a dagger, a flower, a bush?” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Whenever you want to cheer yourself up, consider the good qualities of your companions, for example, the energy of one, the modesty of another, the generosity of yet another, and some other quality of another; for nothing cheers the heart as much as the images of excellence reflected in the character of our companions, all brought before us as fully as possible. Therefore, keep these images ready at hand.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Wisdom

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Philosophy

“The time of a man’s life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful; to be brief, as a stream so are all things belonging to the body; as a dream, or as a smoke, so are all that belong unto the soul. Our life is a warfare, and a mere pilgrimage. Fame after life is no better than oblivion. What is it then that will adhere and follow? Only one thing, philosophy.

And philosophy doth consist in this, for a man to preserve that spirit which is within him, from all manner of contumelies and injuries, and above all pains or pleasures; never to do anything either rashly, or feignedly, or hypocritically: only to depend from himself, and his own proper actions: all things that happen unto him to embrace contentedly, as coming from him from whom he himself also came; and above all things, with all meekness and a calm cheerfulness, to expect death, as being nothing else but the resolution of those elements, of which every creature is composed.

And if the elements themselves suffer nothing by their perpetual conversion of one into another, that dissolution, and alteration, which is so common unto all, why should it be feared by any? Is this not according to nature? But nothing that is according to nature can be evil.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Philosophy and stoic

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Strange

“We are the other of the other” ― Marco Aurelio

“Look to nothing, not even for a moment except to reason.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Mortality, Philosophy

“All of us are creatures of a day; the remember and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral—both memory and the object of memory. 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.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Life and Philosophy

“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?” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Behavior, Morality

“Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Philosophy of life, psychology

“The world is mere change, and this life, opinion.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Appearance, Truth

“For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Apology

“The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.” ― Marcus Aurelius 

“Our actions may be impeded… 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. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ― Marcus Aurelius

“Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Ethics and Morality

“It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 

Revenge

“The best revenge is not to do as they do.” ― Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor’s Handbook 

“Think of the universal substance, of which thou has a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art” ― Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Morality-without-religion, philosophy, philosophy-of-life

“Be your own master, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us—like sun, wind, and animals. 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.” ― Marcus Aurelius

Death Is Dreadful

“Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces – to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp? What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it – and makes it burn still higher.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“In everything that you do, pause and ask yourself if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives you of this” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Look within. Within it is the fountain of good, and it will never bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.” ― Marcus Aurelius

“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.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Meditation by Marcus Aurelius is one of the greatest works of philosophy ever written, teaching self-restraint and inner calm. Here are some important quotes from this work that will help you find your own path to happiness.

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