Quotes from Marcus Aurelius – Meditations

Change: nothing inherently bad in the process, nothing inherently good in the result.
Marcus Aurelius

The personal writings of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 A.D.), conventionally known as Meditations, are today one of the most widely known and read works of ancient philosophy by audiences across the world. Written in Greek as a source of personal consolation, guidance and self improvement, without any intention of publication, the 12 books of Meditations offer a remarkable series of spiritual reflections and exercises as the emperor struggled to understand himself, and make sense of the universe. The topics and themes covered include reflections on the mind, the body, the soul, the universe, the gods, nature, pain, time, death, and one’s sense of duty and purpose in life. Rather than try to offer another review of this work (there are hundreds, if not thousands of those elsewhere online), I thought I would list my 20 favourite quotes from Marcus below as a source of inspiration to others.

The following quotes, in no particular order, are from the Penguin Classics edition first published in 2006, translated by Martin Hammond.

When you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is in your constitution and man’s nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is something you share with dumb animals. Now what accords with the nature of each being is thereby the more closely related to it, the more in its essence, and indeed the more to its liking. 8.12

Good or ill for the rational social being lies not in feeling but in action: just as also his own virtue or vice shows not in what he feels, but what he does. 9.16.

Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought ‘I am hurt’: remove the thought ‘I am hurt’, and the hurt itself is removed. 4.7.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. 6.6.

Perfection of character is this: To live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence. 7.69.

From Severus: to have conceived the idea of a balanced constitution, a commonwealth based on equality and freedom of speech, and of a monarchy which values above all the liberty of the subject; from him, too, a constant and vigorous respect for philosophy, beneficence, unstinting generosity, optimism; his confidence in the affection of his friends, his frankness with those met in his censure, and open likes and dislikes, so that his friends did not need to guess at his wishes. 1.14.

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. 6.21.

Do not be ashamed of help. It is your task to achieve your assigned duty, like a soldier in a scaling party. What, then, if you are lame and cannot climb the parapet by yourself, but this is made possible by another’s help? 7.7.

If it is not right, don’t do it, if it is not true, don’t say it. 12.17.

Have I done something for the common good? Then I too have benefited. Have this thought always ready to hand: and no stopping. 11.4.

Do not imagine that, if something is hard for you to achieve, it is impossible therefore for every man: but rather consider anything that is humanly possible and appropriate to lie within your grasp too. 6.19.

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: Today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of good and evil. But I have seen the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong, and I have reflected that the nature of the offender is akin to my own – not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were built for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition. 2.1.

Love the art in which you have learnt, and take comfort in it. Go through the remainder of your life in sincere commitment of all your being to the gods, and never making yourself tyrant or slave to any man. 4.29.

Do not dream of possession which you do not have: rather reflect on the greatest blessings in what you do have, and on their account remind yourself how much they would have been missed if they were not there. But at the same time you must be careful to not let your pleasure in them habituate you to dependency, to avoid distress if they are sometimes absent. 7.27.

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. But you should still be kind to them. They are by nature your friends, and the gods too help them in various ways – dreams and divination – at least to the objects of their concern. 9.27.

Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows – the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues – and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready to hand. 6.48.

At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: ‘I am getting up for a man’s work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose of which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?’ ‘But this is more pleasant.’ Were you then born for pleasure – all for feeling, not for action? Can you not see plants, birds, ants, spiders, bees all doing their own work, each helping in their own way to order the world? And then you do not want to do the work of a human being – you do not hurry to the demands of your own nature. ‘But one needs rest too.’ One does indeed, I agree. But nature has set limits to this too, just as it has to eating and drinking, and yet you go beyond these limits, beyond what you need. Not in your actions, though, not any longer: here you stay below your capability.
The point is that you do not love yourself – otherwise you would love both your own nature and her purpose for you. Other men love their pursuit and absorb themselves in its performance to the exclusion of bath and food: but you have less regard for your own nature than the smith has for his metal-work, the dancer for his dancing, the money-grubber for his money, the exhibitionist for his little moment of fame. Yet these people, when impassioned, give up food and sleep for the promotion of their pursuits: and you think social action less important, less worthy of effort? 5.1.

Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before this moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus, and live it as nature directs. 7.56.

‘There was a time when I met luck at every turn.’ But luck is the good fortune you determine for yourself: and good fortune consists in good inclinations of the soul, good impulses, good actions. 5.45.

and finally:

The light of a lamp shines on and does not lose its radiance until it is extinguished. Will then the truth, justice and self control which fuel you fail before your own end? 12.15.

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