Philosophy Quote by Marcus Aurelius — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

“Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.”

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won't hail the occasion with delight.”

“Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.”

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”

“Most of the liberal defenses of pornography are equally muddled. Writers and university professors feel quite heroic in taking the witness stand to avow that some outrageously immoral book is somehow supremely moral. These men usually display two contradictory motives. First, they oppose the censorship of any book on any grounds as a matter of principle. Anything and everything should be freely published. Some would impose restraints on things that are Nazi, racist, or similarly tabooed, but many are earnest champions of unlimited freedom of publication. Unlimited freedom is for them a supreme good. Second, since unlimited freedom is seen as a supreme good, it follows that the results of such an unlimited freedom must somehow be good. They therefore feel it necessary to defend the moral integrity of such books as are attacked for their use of this license. As a result, these scholars and writers place themselves in a most amusing position: they are ready to defend anything attacked on moral grounds, as though freedom makes all its adherents good. No doubt if some avant-garde writer issued a book empty of everything save a cake of cow dung between its covers, scholars would not be lacking to interpret for a court what a profound and redeeming social commentary was at stake.”

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.”

“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!”