Marcus Aurelius

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

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

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together."

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

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

"Life is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil."

"Do not waste time on what you cannot control."

"You are a little soul carrying around a corpse."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."

"Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself."

"To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony."

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

"Nothing happens to any man that he is not fitted by nature to bear."

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly."

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

"How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything that happens in life."

"In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being."

"Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been."

"It is not enough to be good; you must be good for something."

"Remember that very little is needed for a happy life."

"You must become an ignorant man before you can become a wise one."

"To the wise, all things are full of wisdom."

"The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away."

"Begin each day as if it were on purpose."

"A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions."

"What we do now echoes in eternity."