Quotessence
Home / Books / Meditations

Meditations

Book by Marcus Aurelius · 12 quotes · Philosophy, Stoicism, Ifs

Filter quotes by topic

AllPhilosophyStoicismIfsLifeMenInspirationalMindAcceptanceDeathSoulEmotional IntelligenceUniverseGoodnessHappensActionAll ThingsDoeFameWholeMarcus Aurelius

Meditations Quotes

“What then, will a little fame distract you? Look at the speed of universal oblivion, the gulf of immeasurable time both before and after, the vacuity of applause, the indiscriminate fickleness of your apparent supporters, the tiny room in which all this is confined. The whole earth is a mere point in space: what a minute cranny within this is your own habitation, and how many and what sort will sing your praises here!”

DeathFameInsignificance
Book:Meditations
Create image

“Look at the thousands of flocks and herds, the thousands of human ceremonies, every sort of voyage in storm or calm, the range of creation, combination, and extinction. Consider too the lives once lived by others long before you, the lives that will be lived after you, the lives lived now among foreign tribes; and how many have never even heard your name, how many will very soon forget it, how many may praise you now but quickly turn to blame. Reflect that neither memory nor fame, nor anything else at all, has any importance worth thinking of.”

DeathTimeHumilityFame
Book:Meditations
Create image

“Your children are no more than ‘leaves’. ‘Leaves’ too these loud voices of loyal praise, these curses from your opponents, this silent blame of mockery: mere ‘leaves’ likewise those with custody of your future fame. All these ‘come round in the season of spring’: but then the wind blows them down, and the forest ‘puts out others’ in their stead. All things are short-lived – this is their common lot – but you pursue likes and dislikes as if all was fixed for eternity. In a little while you too will close your eyes, and soon there will be others mourning the man who buries you.”

DeathFameReputationAdmiration
Book:Meditations
Create image

“What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us – and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep. Reflecting on all this, this nothing important other than active pursuit where your own nature leads and passive acceptance of what universal nature brings.”

LifeDeathTimeAcceptanceIntegrityGoals
Book:Meditations
Create image

“Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or is uncertain. Brief is man's life and small the nook of the earth where he lives; brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, buoyed only by a succession of poor human beings who will very soon die and who know little of themselves, much less of someone who died long ago.”

LifeDeathPurposeTimeHistoryFameExistentialismStocism
Book:Meditations
Create image