Concentrate every minute like a Roman-like a man-on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions.

Let no act be done at haphazard, nor otherwise than according to the finished rules that govern its kind.

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

Choose not to be harmed-and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed-and you haven't been.

He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.

The span we live is small-small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.

Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, "Is this necessary?" But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal.

Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.

But that which is useful is the better.

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

Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.

That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. (Hays translation) Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.

Remember that all is opinion.

Disturbance comes only from within-from our own perceptions.

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.

Choose what's best.-Best is what benefits me.

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.

You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul. Variant translation: Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

...undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests-the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens.

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.

We are all made for mutual assistance, as the feet, the hands, and the eyelids, as the rows of the upper and under teeth, from whence it follows that clashing and opposition is perfectly unnatural.

If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment- If you can embrace this without fear or expectation-can find fulfillment in what you're doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)-then your life will be happy.

Remember this- that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.

"The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.

From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised. Variant: That which is really beautiful has no need of anything.

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

The universe is flux, life is opinion. The universe is (constant) change, life is (mere) presumption.

The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.

You have a mind? -Yes. Well, why not use it?

Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. This that I am, whatever it be, is mere flesh and a little breathe and the ruling Reason, This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.

As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.

You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.

Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.

Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.

Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments.

Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does-or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole...

Think on this doctrine,-that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.