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To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt take back what thou wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently and well pleased with her.

Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus Aurelius
Philosopher
Politician
Roman Emperor
Writer
The Eternal City
Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Marcus Annius Verus
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Take
Gives
Giving
Says
Obediently
Men
Takes
Instructed
Nature
Proudly
Give
Wilt
Back
Pleased
Wells
Modest
Well
Thou

More quotes by Marcus Aurelius

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From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness.
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Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road.
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At day's first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that I am rising for the work of man.
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Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
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Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish.
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I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed.
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The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.
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Let no act be done without purpose.
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Be content with what you are, and wish not change nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
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The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else.
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Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
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Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible life in a palace is possible therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.
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Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.
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Unhappy am I because this has happened to me.- Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.
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When you are offended at anyone's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. By attending to them, you will forget your anger and learn to live wisely.
Marcus Aurelius
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My city and state are Rome. But as a human being? The world. So for me, good can only mean what's good for both communities.
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Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.
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Thou mayest foresee... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years.
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I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself.
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Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.
Marcus Aurelius