Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

Lives are mere blips on the canvas of eternity.

Letting go all else, cling to the following few truths. Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant: all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little, too, is the longest fame to come - dependent as it is on a succession of fast-perishing little men who have no knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long dead and gone.

Some men spend their whole life furnishing for themselves the things proper to life without realizing that at our birth each of us was poured a mortal brew to drink.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.

Time stays, we go.

I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.

A mass of dust, world's momentary slave, Is man, in state of our old Adam made, Soon born to die, soon flourishing to fade.

We're here for such a short period of time.

We pass through this world but once.

This life at best is but an inn, And we the passengers.

Time marks us while we are marking time.

Our time on Earth is so random.

Time is long but life is short.

It ends all things: birds, trees, flowers, mountain tops, and business; it grinds stones to sand, and as terrible as it is, and it's the most beautiful thing we have in our lives - time.

We can change everything but we can't stop time.

You can't halt time.

Life doesn't last; art doesn't last. It doesn't matter.

I think we all lose in the end because we don't get to stay here forever.

For mortal kind taketh thought only for the day, and hath no more surety than the shadow of smoke.

Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.