Marcus Aurelius

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

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

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

Each day provides its own gifts.

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

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.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

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.

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

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

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.

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

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

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.

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".

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.

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.

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.