Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground."

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

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

"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too."

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

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart."

"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."