Quotes from Meditations

You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly.

Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you.

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what is left and live it properly.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up about things you cannot control.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.

No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

Dwell on the beauty of life.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

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

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.