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Men despise one another and flatter one another and men wish to raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another.

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
Despise
Raise
Raises
Wish
Another
Men
Crouch
Flatter

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Your task is to stand straight not to be held straight.
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For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.
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Welcome every experience the looms of fate may weave for you.
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You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It's as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear.
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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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Limit time to the present. Meditate upon your last hour.
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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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The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.
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How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not.
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Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.
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He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.
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Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.
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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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When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one's energy, that one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we're practically showered with them. It's good to keep this in mind.
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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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Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within there lies the power to persuade, there the life, - there, if one must speak out, the real man.
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Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.
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God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose.
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Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains . . . But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree . . . when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself.
Marcus Aurelius
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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