Search Results for: marcus Aurelius

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever…
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer)

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
—Leonardo da Vinci (Italian Polymath)

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
—William James (American Philosopher)

Perhaps the most distinguishing trait of visionary leaders is that they believe in a goal that benefits not only themselves, but others as well. It is such vision that attracts the psychic energy of other people, and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for the organization.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Hungarian-American Psychologist)

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
—Harper Lee (American Novelist)

Big words seldom accompany good deeds.
—Danish Proverb

To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing—here is perfection of character.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.
—George Santayana (Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher)

We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

A docile disposition will, with application, surmount every difficulty.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (American Humorist)

If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (American First Lady)

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter)

Comfort is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable”.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

So remarkably perverse is the nature of man, that he despises those that court him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
—Thucydides (Greek Historian)

Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain’t so wicked as their neighbors.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (American Humorist)

There is no companion like solitude.
One who knows how to tune himself to the inner silence,
even in the midst of the din and roar of the marketplace,
enjoys a most recreative solitude.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom.
—Welsh Proverb

Two things we ought to learn from history: one, that we are not in ourselves superior to our fathers; another, that we are shamefully and monstrously inferior to them, if we do not advance beyond them.
—Thomas Arnold (English Educationalist)

If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we’d have a pretty good time.
—Edith Wharton (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.
—Christopher Isherwood (Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright)

In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough.
—Pierre de Marivaux (French Dramatist, Author)

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.
—Amelia Earhart (American Aviator)

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.
—George Burns (American Comedian)

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

There is no real wealth but the labor of man.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise, for the result is waste of time and general stagnation.
—Sun Tzu (Chinese Military Leader)

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.
—Stephen Covey (American Self-help Author)

I think if you have the opportunity to bully your opponent then you have to take that chance.
—Venus Williams (American Tennis Player)

Love is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary.
—Maurice Baring (British Author)

I hold this as a rule of life: Too much of anything is bad.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life—there, if one must speak out, the real man.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

Be moderate in prosperity, prudent in adversity.
—Periander (Tyrant of Corinth)

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (English Writer, Feminist)

Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.
—Amos Tversky (Israeli Cognitive Psychologist)

Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.
—Jon Bon Jovi (American Musician)

Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.
—Bias of Priene (Greek Orator)

Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.
—Christopher Isherwood (Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright)

The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.
—Li Bai (Chinese Taoist Poet)

Watch people, because you can fake for a long time, but one day you’re gonna show yourself to be a phony.
—Tupac Shakur (American Rapper, Actor)

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.
—Dolly Parton (American Musician, Actress)

Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.
—Zeno of Citium (Greek Philosopher)

The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality or give up the battle in despair.
—Margaret Mead (American Cultural Anthropologist)

Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent.
—Andre Agassi (American Tennis Player)

There is in gardens a plant which one ought to leave dry, although most people water it. It is the weed called envy.
—Cosimo de’ Medici (Florentine Statesman, Banker)

As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma.
—The Guru Granth Sahib (Sacred Text of Sikhism)

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!
—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (French Writer)

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (English Aristocrat)

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose?
—Don Marquis (American Humorist)

Boredom is the deadliest poison.
—William F. Buckley, Jr. (American TV Personality)

It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (American Author, Aviator)

The money men make lives after them.
—Samuel Butler

I am searching for that which every man seeks—peace and rest.
—Dante Alighieri (Italian Political leader)

The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
—William James (American Philosopher)

One mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist)

We may make mistakes—but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance.
—William Ralph Inge (English Anglican Clergyman)

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may from a raw recruit, and its methods differ from those of common sense, only as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Censure is often useful, praise often deceitful.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

We are born to action; and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first.
—Charles Cooley (American Sociologist)

Defeat is simply a signal to press onward.
—Helen Keller (American Author)