1
Make trial how the life of a good man succeeds with you, the life of one who is content with the lot appointed him by Providence
The complete collection
The quote database
Every quote we hold, 1549 of them from 213 people across 387 works. Filter it, sort it, and follow any citation back to the source.
1529 checked at source
Filter the collection
Category
Feeling
Attribution
8 quotes by Marcus Aurelius · clear filters
2
Find your sole delight and recreation in proceeding from one unselfish action to another, with God ever in mind.
3
Is pleasure, then, the object of your being, and not action, and the exercise of your powers?
4
Acquire a method of perceiving how all things change into one another.
5
the mind can convert and change everything that impedes its activity into matter for its action; hindrance in its work becomes its real help, and every obstruction makes for its progress
6
In rest you go beyond these limits, and beyond what is enough; but in action you do not fill the measure, and remain well within your powers.
7
No man can hinder the proper work of the mind.
8
each rational being can make every impediment in his way a proper matter for himself to act upon, and can use it for his guiding purpose, whatever it may be
Marcus Aureliusdisputed·The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (trans. George W. Chrystal)·1902
Attribution contested
This is the passage behind the slogan the obstacle is the way, which Marcus never wrote. That phrase is the title of a 2014 book, and the sentence usually quoted with it -- the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way -- is Gregory Hays's 2002 translation, still in copyright. The thought is genuinely his; the memorable English is not.