Marcus Aurelius Quotes

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

Virtue is nothing but an act of loving that which is to be beloved, and that act is prudence, from whence not to be removed by constraint is fortitude; not to be allured by enticements is temperance; not to be diverted by pride is justice.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

In justice is all virtues found in sum.

I'd always found goodness more interesting then evil, though I was aware this wasn't the most general view. To my mind, it took more work and more courage to be good, an opinion continually reinforced by my own shortcomings.

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.

Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

Virtue is not always amiable.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right. [...] I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

If all men were just there would be no need of valor.

I know no other sign of superiority than Goodness.

When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?