9 Marcus Aurelius Quotes You’ll Never Forget

Without stumbling across Marcus Aurelius (and Meditations), no way on this earth that I would have become the person I am today.

Even though he’s been dead for nearly 2000 years, it’s incredible how much influence he’s unknowingly had on not only mine but millions of other people’s lives over that period.

In this article, we could have easily listed and discussed over 100, but for now, we will start with 9.

So, let’s get into it.

1. “The best revenge is to not be like your enemy.”

When someone wrongs you, fighting fire with fire isn’t always the best course of action to take.

In fact, most of the time, fighting fire with fire is the wrong action to take.

Instead, we should be the bigger person, stay calm, and not be like the person who has wronged us.

2. “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.”

Just because we’re strict and disciplined with ourselves doesn’t mean we should force others to do the same.

Learn to have some form of leniency.

Not everyone can be as disciplined and committed as us.

3. “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

Live with a sense of urgency and intention.

Stop waiting for things to happen.

Instead, make things happen.

4. “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

Stop theorising what the best about what it means to be a good human being.

Just be one.

Do good, be good, live with good intentions, and do what we’re supposed to do.

5. “Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Focus on actions, not the outcome.

If it’s the right thing to do, and we know it’s the right thing to do, even if other people don’t think it is, just do it.

6. “It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.”

We have so many different faults to deal with internally it’s ridiculous.

So, instead of spending all our time and focus trying to solve other people’s issues, maybe we should start focusing more on ourselves.

This doesn’t mean we should never help other people; it means we should shift our attention towards helping someone we can help: ourselves.

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

We shouldn’t be scared of death.

Instead, we should be scared of never living the life we want to live, a life without meaning, without purpose, and without the people we want to share it with.

(P.S. I used to have this one pinned up on my bedroom cupboard!)

8. “It never ceases to amaze me that we all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinions than our own.”

How many of us truly love ourselves?

How many of us make and trust our own decisions?

How many of us are scared of taking risks and taking action because we let other people steer our inner ship?

We like to think that we value ourselves, but we put too much trust in other people’s judgements.

9. “You could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow.”

We have the chance to make the right choices, do something good with our day, and seize the opportunities that present themselves to us daily.

But we don’t.

We procrastinate and don’t take action.

We put things off for abother day.

But the truth is, tomorrow might never come.

To think otherwise reeks of arrogance and entitlement.

Thank you for reading this article and spending your most precious asset on me — your time.

I appreciate it, and I hope to see you again soon!