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.
Marcus AureliusRead
You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action.
Interpretation
Life requires active involvement and personal effort to shape it.
This quote by Marcus Aurelius emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility and proactive engagement in crafting our lives. It suggests that fulfillment and purpose are achieved through deliberate actions, underscoring the idea that we cannot wait for circumstances to change but must take initiative ourselves, step by step.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
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.
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so .
The dice of God are always loaded.
Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time. Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it. Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.
There is no space in which worship should not take place, no time when it should not occur, and no activity through which it should not happen.
Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.
Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.