Marcus Aurelius

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

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

"The universe is transformation: life is opinion."

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."

"When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life."

"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them."

"Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live."

"Anger cannot be dishonest."

"Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also."

"Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished."

"Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh."

"Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature."

"Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else."

"Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last."

"Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle."

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

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

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

"Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself."

"Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live."

"Men exist for the sake of one another."

"Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."

"Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear."

"Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life."

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

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"To live happily is an inward power of the soul."

"To refrain from imitation is the best revenge."

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

"Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time."

"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."

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