Why do we shrink from change? What can come into being safe by change?

— Marcus Aurelius

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

Without a purpose nothing should be done.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

— Marcus Aurelius

You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite.

— Marcus Aurelius

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

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

— Marcus Aurelius

You should always be ready to apply these two rules of action, the first, to do nothing other than what the kingly and law-making art ordains for the benefits of humankind, and, the second, to be prepared to change your mind if someone is at hand to put you right and guide you away from some groundless opinion.

— Marcus Aurelius