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Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.

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
Imposed
Necessity
Rational
Follow
Simply
Animal
Given
Happens
Voluntarily

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A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
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Receive without conceit, release without struggle.
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...if a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come.
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The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.
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The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer.
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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.
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Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.
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Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.
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It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.
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When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it.
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If you separate from . . . everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future . . . and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.
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Give full attention and devotion to each act.
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And in the case of superior things like stars, we discover a kind of unity in separation. The higher we rise on the scale of being, the easier it is to discern a connection even among things separated by vast distances.
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To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief
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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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Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.
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To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
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Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.
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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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