Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."

"From the philosopher Catulus, never to be dismissive of a friend's accusation, even if it seems unreasonable, but to make every effort to restore the relationship to its normal condition."

"When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ..."

"Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence."

"Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one."

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

"No man is happy who does not think himself so."

"If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed."

"Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?"

"All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion."

"striid andWthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm."

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

"If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance."

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

"We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first."

"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts."

"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts."

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

"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."

"How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy."