Marcus

Justice consists in doing no injury to men decency in giving them no offense.

The more laws, the less justice.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

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

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

Not to know the events which happened before one was born, that is to remain always a boy.

When you wish to instruct, be brief that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

The spirit is the true self.

While there's life, there's hope.

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.

Men in no way approach so nearly to the gods as in doing good to men.

The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Vivere est cogitare. (To think is to live)

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

A home without books is a body without soul.

. . . for until that God who rules all the region of the sky. . . has freed you from the fetters of your body, you cannot gain admission here. Men were created with the understanding that they were to look after that sphere called Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple. Minds have been given to them out of the eternal fires you call fixed stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened with divine minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed....

There is nothing so ridiculous absurd* but some philosopher has said it.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

No Sane man will dance.

To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

For if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a change of abode only, what can be more desirable And if it, on the other hand, destroys and absolutely puts an end to us, what can be preferable to having a deep sleep fall on us in the midst of the fatigues of life and, being thus overtaken, to sleep to eternity

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.

I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.

Nothing quite new is perfect.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third.

There is no place more delightful than home.

I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.

The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8msecsec.

That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.

The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.

A wrong-doer is often a man that has left something undone, not always he that has done something.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it.... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

Look beneath the surface let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.

If it is not seemly, do it not if it is not true, speak it not.

All is ephemeral,--fame and the famous as well.

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

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

Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.

Whatever happens it all happens as it should thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst watch closely.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live death is nigh at hand while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

'Let thine occupations be few,' saith the sage, 'if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life.'

No form of Nature is inferior to Art for the arts merely imitate natural forms.

Remember this-that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within there lies the power to persuade, there the life,--there, if one must speak out, the real man.

As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.

Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.

Nothing happens to any thing which that thing is not made by nature to bear.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present 'I am rising to a man's work.'

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

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

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature.

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself

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

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

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.

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing the main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unseen attack.

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

Remember this, very little is needed to make a happy life.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

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.

To them that ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there are gods, that you are so devout in their worship I answer Neither have I ever seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

A man is a little soul carrying around a courpse.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

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

Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting.

Never esteem anything as an advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good.

Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place and better fortified than this, hath no man.

How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Think on this doctrine,--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains. . .But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree. . .when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself.

Life itself is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Every man's life lies within the present for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

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

A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

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

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

Virtue extends our days he live two lives who relives his past with pleasure.

Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.

Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men.

The virtuous man is never a novice in worldly things.

A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

It is feeling and force of imagination that make us eloquent.

The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate.

The number of guests at dinner should not be less than the number of the Graces nor exceed that of the Muses, i.e., it should begin with three and stop at nine.