Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.

Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is set above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness.

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

A simple maiden in her flower, Is worth a hundred coats of arms.

Do unto others…’ is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is - a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. ‘Do this or you’ll burn in hell.’ You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.

She tended to be impatient with that sort of intellectual who, for all his brilliance, has never been able to arrive at the simple conclusion that to be reasonably happy you have to be reasonably good.

Virtue lies half way between two opposite vices.

Beauty is the virtue of the body as virtue is the beauty of the soul

Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.

Shall ignorance of good and ill Dare to direct the eternal will? Seek virtue, and of that possest, To Providence resign the rest.

The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue.

We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us.

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.

The only amarantine flower on earth Is virtue.

An essential virtue is humility. ... The principle of humility and prayer leads one to feel a need of divine guidance. Self-reliance is a virtue, but with it should go a consciousness of the need of superior help-a consciousness that as you walk firmly in the pathway of duty, there is a possibility of your making a misstep; and with that consciousness is a prayer, a pleading that God will inspire you to avoid that false step

Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

Virtue is in the mind, not in the appearance.

...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.