Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.

When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.

Mastery of reading and writing requires a master. Still, more so life.

Consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events that go before are soon covered by those that come after.

If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, honesty, self-control, courage – than a mind satisfied that is has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control – if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations – it must be an extraordinary thing indeed – and enjoy it to the full.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them – that it would upset you to lose them.

Just ask whether they put their self-interest in externals or in moral choice. If it’s in externals, you cannot call them friends, any more than you can call them trustworthy, consistent, courageous or free.

While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

What is the goal of virtue, after all, except a life that flows smoothly?

For where else is friendship found if not with fairness, reliability and respect for virtue only?

You will give yourself relief, if you do every act of your life as if it were the last.

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.

Be cheerful also, and do not seek external help or the tranquillity that others give. A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

The art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets that are sudden and unexpected.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

The history of your life is now complete and your service is ended: and how many beautiful things you have seen; and how many pleasures and pains you have despised; and how many things called honorable you have spurned; and to how many ill-minded folks you have shown a kind disposition.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.

The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.

Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills… There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind… So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.

The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.

When you wish to delight yourself, think of the virtues of those who live with you; for instance, the activity of one, the modesty of another, the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth.

To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. For all these [blessings in my life] require the help of the gods and fortune.

All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and how nothing need arouse one’s irritation so long as one doesn’t make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind – things that exist only there – and clear out space for yourself: by comprehending the scale of the world, by contemplating infinite time, by thinking of the speed with which things change – each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equality unbounded time that follows.

Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived – not in the least like the rich. (What Marcus learned from his mother)

If you seek tranquility, do less. Or do what’s essential – what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’

Think not so much of what you lack as of what you have: but of the things that you have, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.

Remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present.

Today I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people – unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what the’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.

You can pass your life in an equable flow of happiness if you can follow the right way and think and act in the right way.

Failure to observe what is in the mind of another has seldom made a man unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

Set yourself in motion, if it is in your power, and do not look about you to see if anyone will observe it; nor yet expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not “This is misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune”.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

How soon will time cover all things, and how many it has covered already.

A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.

Brief is man’s life and small the nook of the earth where he lives; brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.