Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana (27 BC to 180 AD), an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.
Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.