Marcus Aurelius is the emperor of Ancient Rome, a philosopher belonging to the Antonine dynasty. It was after his reign that the “golden age” ended and the ancient state came to an end.
The Emperor was born in April 121. Father, Aniy Ver, was a representative of an ancient Spanish family. Mother, Domitia Lucilla, was a representative of an aristocratic family, a relative of the emperor. At birth the child received the name Marcus Anius Catilius.
The boy received an excellent education, being in the circle of those close to the ruler. He studied art, science and philosophy at home. From childhood, the young man was immersed in the world of philosophical beliefs. Even Adrian himself noticed the boy’s great abilities and pointed to his bright future. He gave the order to send Mark to a school where the best teachers of those times taught. The ruler trained the young man and prepared him as a future successor. To realize his goals, Adrian chose a new adoptive father for the boy, Antoninus Pius. After all, in the Roman Empire, power could only be passed on by inheritance.
In 138, after the death of the emperor, Anius Catilius took over the position of Quaestor. He was busy with paperwork, delving more and more into politics. At the age of 19, the young man was appointed to the post of consul, which he held until 161 years old. He was elected to this position three times, gradually increasing his powers.
Antonin Pius died in April 161. Mark and Lucius became worthy replacements and led Rome. In 169, Lucius Verus died, after which all power passed to Aurelius. Mark had excellent oratory skills, which helped him win over the population. He was a very prudent and wise ruler. He carried out many activities during his reign, such as: streamlining legal proceedings, strengthening the prestige of the Senate, improving the taxation system, creating colleges, registering the population and much more.
Despite the uprisings and the plague, the philosopher coped well with his government duties and was determined. From 177 until his death, Marcus Aurelius had only one main enemy - his son Commodus. The last years of his life were very turbulent, although the emperor had very peaceful views. Ancient Rome was constantly under attack. The ruler fought with the Syrians and Germans, bravely defending his citizens.
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The follower of Epictetus had 13 children from his wife Pia Faustina, who died during another campaign. Despite his wife's infidelity, he mourned her for a long time and could not cope with the loss. As a result of constant wars and misfortunes, the emperor was left with only 4 daughters and 1 son, Commodus, who was noted in history as an unjust and rude ruler.
The philosopher died in 178 from the plague in Vindobona. Even knowing about his difficult situation, the philosopher was only worried about the lives of his citizens and Ancient Rome. He was not afraid of death and accepted it nobly.
Currently, contemporaries have many books describing the ancient philosophy of Stoicism and government based on the principles of humanity. Marcus reflected all his ideas on paper. His great work “Reflections” has reached our time, in which the ruler described his view of correct politics and the world as a whole. His famous sayings and aphorisms have also been preserved. We invite you to familiarize yourself with some of them.
Statements about good qualities of a person
- When, due to circumstances, the balance of the spirit is disturbed, restore your composure as quickly as possible and do not remain in a depressed mood for too long, otherwise nothing can be done to help you. The habit of restoring harmony will improve you.
- A person should be honest by nature, not by circumstance.
- Show those qualities that you are able to show: sincerity, seriousness, endurance in work, indifference to pleasures, the ability to be satisfied with little, benevolence, frankness, contempt for the surface, freedom from false generosity.
- Loving those who make mistakes and are mistaken is a special human property. Such love is born when you understand that all people are your brothers. That they are mired in ignorance and are mistaken against their own will.
- Dream big. Only great dreams have the power to touch human souls.
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Quotes from Marcus Aurelius
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection of quotes from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180).
He is considered one of the best Roman emperors. After his death he was deified .
Quotes are summarized by topic: life ethics, useful advice, the common good, life, human manifestations, evil, people, death, happiness, the present, justice, love, enemies, a good person, great, glory, soul, gods, good, mind, honesty.
About life ethics
The time of human life is a moment; its essence is eternal flow; sensation - vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything related to the body is like a stream, everything related to the soul is like a dream and smoke. Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land; posthumous glory - oblivion. But what can lead to the path? Nothing but philosophy.
Nothing should be done in vain and never act otherwise than in accordance with the strict rules of art.
You should do everything, talk about everything and think as if every moment could be your last.
Perform every task as if it were the last in your life.
Living every day as if it were your last, never fussing, never being indifferent, never taking theatrical poses - this is the perfection of character.
To attach one good deed to another so tightly that there is not the slightest gap between them - this is what I call enjoying.
Whatever happens to you, it has been predetermined for you from eternity. And from the very beginning, a web of reasons connected your existence with this event.
If you cannot change your circumstances, change your attitude towards them.
The best way to protect yourself is not to be like them.
If a certain object irritates you, then it is not the object itself that is to blame, but your judgment about it. And you have the power to change this judgment.
If anyone can convict me and clearly show that I understand or do something incorrectly, I will change with joy. I am looking for the truth, which has never harmed anyone; He who ossifies himself in lies and ignorance harms himself.
Take without blindness, part with ease.
Let your deeds be the way you would like to remember them in your later life.
Useful tips
Do not do what your conscience condemns, and do not say what is not in accordance with the truth. Observe this most important thing and you will complete the whole task of your life.
Always take the shortest route. The shortest is the path that agrees with Nature.
Turn into yourself.
Try to see if the life of a worthy person, content with the justice of his actions and the benevolence of his spiritual disposition, suits you.
If something seems too difficult to you, do not think that it is beyond human strength. And vice versa, if a person can perform one or another worthy act, it means that you are able to perform the same act.
Don't be smart about yourself, try to be simple. Is anyone making a mistake? He sins against himself. Did something happen to you? Wonderful. Everything that happens to you was originally destined for you and is associated with you due to the structure of the Whole.
Adapt yourself to the environment in which you are destined to live, and show true love for your brothers with whom fate has surrounded you.
Never regard as useful to you anything that will force you to ever break fidelity, forget shame, or hate another.
When, due to circumstances, the balance of the spirit is disturbed, restore your composure as quickly as possible and do not remain in a depressed mood for too long, otherwise nothing can be done to help you. The habit of restoring harmony will improve you.
Don't think there's shame in accepting help. You must perform your assigned duty, like a soldier on duty.
Start each day by telling yourself: “Today I will encounter opposition, ingratitude, insolence, betrayal, anger and selfishness - and all of them will be caused by the ignorance of the offenders, their inability to distinguish good from evil
Don't be content with a superficial glance. Neither the originality of each thing nor its dignity should escape you.
About the common good
That is only true goodness and goodness, which is goodness and goodness for everyone.
Seek joy and peace only in moving from social action to social action.
Work constantly, do not consider work to be a disaster or a burden for yourself, and do not desire praise or participation for yourself for it. The common good is what you should desire.
First, don't do anything without a reason or purpose. Secondly, don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit society.
The life of an individual person must merge completely tightly with the general life of humanity, for all creation is imbued with harmony and unity. Both in external nature and in the spiritual realm, all phenomena of life are closely connected with each other.
Just as you yourself are one of the components of the civil totality, so let every act of yours be part of civil life. And if any of your actions is not correlated, directly or remotely, with a social purpose, then it means that it tears apart life and does not allow it to be unified.
An exile who flees from civil understanding.
About life
Our life is what our thoughts turn it into.
Man lives only in the present moment. Everything else has either already passed or it is unknown whether it will happen.
Nothing happens to anyone that they cannot bear.
The task of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to live in accordance with the internal law that you recognize.
Start now to live the life you would like to see in the end.
Wherever you can live, you can live well.
He who does not know what the world is does not know where he is.
Understand not only that life kills every day and less and less of it remains, but also that with a very long life the power of thought is not always retained to understand what is happening and comprehend human affairs.
It makes no difference whether you observe human life for forty years or ten thousand years. For what will you see new?
By the way, quotes about life
About human manifestations
Show those qualities that you are able to demonstrate: sincerity, seriousness, endurance in work, indifference to pleasures, the ability to be satisfied with little, benevolence, frankness, contempt for superficiality, freedom from false generosity.
Righteousness is with love for what fate gives, since nature brought it to you, and you to this.
Calmness is nothing more than proper order in thoughts.
He who persists in error and ignorance suffers harm.
Don't rush to agree with chatterboxes!
There are people who, having done you a favor, will immediately declare that you are indebted to them.
The most despicable form of cowardice is self-pity.
About evil
Evil does not exist for material nature, but evil exists for every person who is given the consciousness of good and the freedom to choose between good and evil.
The unjust, making himself evil, does evil to himself.
If a person has done you harm, immediately make sure whether he did it out of good or evil intentions. For when you see this, you will feel pity for him and will neither be surprised nor angry.
Strange! A person is indignant at the evil that comes from outside, from others, that which he cannot eliminate, and does not fight his own personal evil, which is in his power.
It’s funny: you can’t avoid your own depravity, although this is possible, but avoid someone else’s, which is in no way possible.
By the way, quotes about evil
About people
People exist for each other.
People are born to help each other, just as a hand helps an arm, a leg helps a leg, and the upper jaw helps the lower.
A person's true worth is measured in the things he strives for!
Everyone is worth as much as what he is bothering about is worth.
People will do the same thing no matter how hard you try.
If you could see from what source people’s judgments and interests flow, you would stop seeking people’s approval and praise.
By the way, quotes about people
About death
A person should not be afraid of death, he should be afraid of never starting to live.
Death smiles on each of us. We can only smile back at her.
Death is as much a mystery of nature as birth. In one case there is a connection, in the other there is a decomposition of the same elements. In general, there is nothing in them that could be shameful for anyone, for there is nothing inappropriate for a spiritual being or a mind of the same structure.
Soon you will forget about everything, and everything, in turn, will forget about you.
Not for long, and I will become ashes or a skeleton, maybe a name, or even not a name.
Oh happiness
No man is happy until he considers himself happy.
For a happy life you need very little. It's all about the person himself, his way of thinking.
You can live your life happily if you can walk the right path and can think and act correctly.
Happy is he who has the holy of holies in his own soul.
He who does not examine the movement of his own thoughts cannot be happy!
By the way, quotes about happiness
About the present
Everything present is a moment of eternity.
He who has seen the present has already seen everything that has happened throughout eternity, and everything that will happen during infinite time.
Everything that you dream of achieving over time can now be yours, if you are not stingy with yourself, that is, if you leave the entire past, entrust the future to providence, and only begin to deal with the present righteously and fairly.
We cannot take away either our past, because it no longer exists, or our future, because we do not have it yet.
About justice
Fairly means speaking the truth nobly and bluntly and acting according to the law and dignity.
Judge every word and deed in accordance with their nature, and do not be embarrassed by the blasphemy of other people and any of their words. Because other people have their own special principles.
Remember that changing your mind and following what corrects your mistake is more consistent with freedom than persisting in your mistake.
Injustice is not always associated with some kind of action: often it consists precisely in inaction.
About love
Loving those who make mistakes and are mistaken is a special human property. Such love is born when you understand that all people are your brothers. That they are mired in ignorance and are mistaken against their own will.
The more a person loves himself, the more he depends on the opinions of others.
Copulation - friction of the insides and secretion of mucus with some kind of shudder.
By the way, quotes about love
About enemies
If someone insulted me, that’s his business, that’s his inclination, that’s his character. I have my own character, the one that was given to me by nature, and I will remain true to my nature in my actions.
The real way to take revenge on your enemy is to not be like him.
Do not be imbued with the conviction that the offender holds, nor with the one that he wants to impose on you, but consider everything from the side of truth.
About a good man
A good, benevolent and sincere person can be recognized by his eyes.
You should once and for all put an end to discussions about what a good person should be, and just... become one.
No matter what anyone does or says, I must remain a good person.
About the great
Dream big: only big dreams have the power to touch people's souls.
Chasing the impossible is madness.
To do good and at the same time enjoy a bad reputation - there is something royal in this.
About fame
What is eternal glory? Sheer vanity. Everything is fleeting: both the one who remembers and what is remembered.
Or are you carried away by miserable fame? Look at how quickly everything sinks into oblivion, how eternity yawns, limitless in both directions, how empty every echo is, how fickle and illegible those who seem to praise you are, and how narrow the space is delineated for you. And the whole earth is a point. What corner of it is your location? And how many people are there here who will praise you and what are they like?
About the soul
The quietest and most serene place a person can retire to is his soul. Allow yourself such solitude more often and draw new strength from it.
Train yourself to be attentive to the words of other people and try, if possible, to penetrate into the soul of the speaker. But what are you supposed to do there?
By the way, quotes about the soul
About the gods
Without consideration of the divine, you cannot do anything human well, and vice versa.
Gods are either powerless or powerful. If they are powerless, then why do you pray to them? If they are powerful, then isn’t it better to pray about not being afraid of anything, not wanting anything, not being upset by anything, rather than about the presence or absence of something?
About goodness
Kindness is impossible to resist. What can even the most dull person do to you if you are constantly kind to him?
If you have done good, and another has experienced good, then why, like fools, do you strive for something third, like the glory of a good person or a reward?
By the way, quotes about goodness
About the mind
We must conquer with our minds what cannot be conquered with force.
If you are imbued with certain principles and devote yourself to the service of Ruzum, then in ten days you will seem like a god to those to whom you now seem like a beast and a monkey.
About Honesty
A person should be honest by nature, not by circumstance.
Telling the truth is not so much a matter of will as it is a habit.
About miscellaneous
That which does not let in light deprives itself of it.
People do not know how many meanings such words as “steal”, “sow”, “buy”, “do nothing”, “see what is proper” have; For this knowledge, it is not the bodily eyes that are needed, but some other organ of vision.
Whatever I may be, I am only a weak body, a weak manifestation of the vital force and the dominant principle. Neglect your body as if you were dying. It is only blood and bones, a mortal network of nerves, veins and arteries.
The problem is that by not taking risks, we risk a hundred times more.
Marcus Aurelius was revered as a philosopher emperor . This is a very rare combination, because in essence the aspirations, lifestyle and “work” of emperors and philosophers are multidirectional, and rather even opposite. Of similar examples, I remember only the impressive, but short-lived experience of governing the country of the Chinese sage Confucius (see quotes from Confucius).
Quotes about Marcus Aurelius
- Epictetus: Whoever wants to please God must try to be like him: he must be faithful as he is faithful, merciful as he is merciful, free as he is free, generous as he is generous.
- E. Renan: Marcus Aurelius is a man who combines in himself everything that was good in the ancient world, and represents for criticism the advantage that he appears before it without cover, thanks to written testimony, the sincerity and authenticity of which is undeniable.
- L. Tolstoy: There was so much good in the life of Marcus Aurelius, and so much wisdom in his thoughts that it is worth studying them, leaving his mistakes aside; they concern him, not us. We can use his thoughts: in them we will find a lot of things that will help us live better ourselves. (by the way, quotes from Leo Tolstoy)
- D. Merezhkovsky: If you take this book in your hands with a sincere thirst for faith, with an anxious conscience and a soul agitated by great incessant questions about duty, about the meaning of life and death, the diary of Marcus Aurelius will captivate you, seem closer and more modern than many creations of yesterday's geniuses... This book is alive. She may not make any impression, but once she touches the heart, it is impossible not to love her.
- A. Losev: Marcus Aurelius, like Epictetus, has such a low opinion of the human soul that the only way out for them is only the grace of God.
- P. Hadot: The pessimistic formulas of Marcus Aurelius are not at all the expression of the personal views of a jaded emperor, but spiritual exercises practiced in accordance with a strict methodology.
Next, you can go to the popular expressions of Ancient Rome or to other collections of quotes:
- Seneca quotes
- quotes from Julius Caesar
- Plato quotes
- buddha quotes
- Solomon quotes
- Machiavelli quotes
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Statements about problems
- No man is happy until he considers himself happy.
- There are people who, having rendered a service to someone, immediately consider themselves entitled to expect a reward for it; others, not counting on direct reward, do not forget for a minute the service rendered and admit in their souls that they have debtors; finally, there are those who are always ready to serve, almost involuntarily, according to the mere desire of their heart; These are like a grapevine, which, having grown its clusters, is completely satisfied that its own fruit has ripened on it.
- Injustice is not always associated with some kind of action: often it consists precisely in inaction.
- Every morning I must tell myself: today I will meet a fool, an insolent person, a rude person, a swindler.
- The problem is that by not taking risks, we risk a hundred times more.
- Strange! A person is indignant at the evil that comes from outside, from others - that which he cannot eliminate, and does not fight against his own evil, although this is in his power.
Transience of time
Another quote from Marcus Aurelius teaches us to observe the speed of the passage of time: “Think often about the speed with which everything rushes by and goes away.” It is known that time as such cannot change. But its perception in the human mind is subject to constant change. A person is a being who perceives reality through the prism of his experience. And therefore, for him, time flows nonlinearly. Remembering that our lives are fleeting means making the most of our days.
Sayings about life
- Perfection of character is expressed in spending every day as if it were your last.
- Life is short, so live the present with prudence and justice.
- Wherever you can live, you can live well.
- Don’t live like you have another ten thousand years of life ahead of you. The hour is already near. While you live, while you have the opportunity, try to become worthy.
- You can live your life happily if you can walk the right path and can think and act correctly.
- The task of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to live in accordance with the internal law that you recognize.
Aphorisms about happiness
- No man is happy until he considers himself happy.
- For a happy life you need very little. It's all about the person himself, his way of thinking.
- You can live your life happily if you can walk the right path and can think and act correctly.
- Happy is he who has the holy of holies in his own soul.
- He who does not examine the movement of his own thoughts cannot be happy
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Aphorisms about the present
- Everything present is a moment of eternity.
- He who has seen the present has already seen everything that has happened throughout eternity, and everything that will happen during infinite time.
- Everything that you dream of achieving over time can now be yours, if you are not stingy with yourself, that is, if you leave the entire past, entrust the future to providence, and only begin to deal with the present righteously and fairly.
- We cannot take away either our past, because it no longer exists, or our future, because we do not have it yet.
Wise Emperor
Quotes from Marcus Aurelius still remain relevant. The emperor belonged to the school of late Stoicism and believed that all people, both slaves and free, should bear equal responsibility before the law. With his assistance, the liberation of slaves in Rome occurred more quickly, and significant restrictions were placed on the use of torture. Many of Marcus Aurelius' quotes come from his Meditations. “Don’t give up, don’t give up, get lost, come back again and rejoice,” wrote the emperor-philosopher. He applied the principles outlined in his writings in his own life.
Sayings about fame
- What is eternal glory? Sheer vanity. Everything is fleeting: both the one who remembers and what is remembered.
- Or are you carried away by miserable fame? Look at how quickly everything sinks into oblivion, how eternity yawns, limitless in both directions, how empty every echo is, how fickle and illegible those who seem to praise you are, and how narrow the space is delineated for you. And the whole earth is a point. What corner of it is your location? And how many people are there here who will praise you and what are they like?
