Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

"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."

"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."

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

"All things fade and quickly turn to myth."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking."

"What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne."

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

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

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

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you."

"The best revenge is not to be like your enemy."

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

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