Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking."
Marcus Aurelius
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reading a quote from marcus aurelius's meditations to my middle school students at the start of every class has been one of the best decisions i ever made as a teacher, partly because it exposes them to ancient literature but mostly because now i have a bunch of twelve year olds who talk like this
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garnet is the only one who will try to argue with a philosopher that literally shares her philosophy if shes bored (she really loves winning arguments)
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius
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The Holdovers (2023) by Alexander Payne
Book title: Meditations (Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν in Ancient Greek; 180 A.D.) by Marcus Aurelius
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Very little is needed to make a happy life: it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius
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Via old friend @ellenkushner 's Twitter account, with the notation "Not mine, but now yours and you are very welcome." :)
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How to act: Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don't gussy up your thoughts. No surplus words or unnecessary actions... Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people's help. Or serenity supplied by others. To stand up straight — not straightened.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (3.5)
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When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius
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When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius
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“Accept death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed. If it doesn't hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It's a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.”
- Marcus Aurelius
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Do not live as if you have ten thousand years left. Your fate hangs over you while you are still living. While you still exist on this Earth, strive to become a genuinely great person. The purpose of your life is not to do as the majority does but to live according to the inner law which you understand in yourself. Do not act against your conscience or against truth; live like this, and you will fulfill the task of your life.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations Among the Tombs
by William Blake
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Very little is needed to make a happy life: it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius
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