Marcus Aurelius Quotes

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Now departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind: and they have put it absolutely in man's power to avoid falling into the true kinds of harm.

The gods give to mortals not everything at the same time.

To live without evil belongs only to the gods.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.

We are the playthings of the gods.

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.

Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.

I used to go to the Improvisation Comedy Club every night in Times Square. How I didn't get killed in that area either means that 1) God is watching over me or 2) I am so insignificant to God that he didn't bother having me killed.

God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid.

Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?

There is yet something remaining for the dead, and some far better thing for the good than for the evil.

It is not difficult to avoid death. It is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death.

I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

The sparrow still falls.

No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.

That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death through the lives of mortal men, an all to make a song for those to come.

It is one thing to fall victim to the flood or to fall prey to cancer; it is another thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

Thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals: that they live in grief while they themselves are without cares; for two jars stand on the floor of Zeus of the gifts which he gives, one of evils and another of blessings.

He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all, and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life.

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.

We are in truth but pieces on this chess board of life, which in the end we leave, only to drop one by one into the grave of nothingness.