Narayan > Narayan's Quotes

“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.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can— if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“If something is difficult for you to accomplish, do not then think it impossible for any human being; rather, if it is humanly possible and corresponds to human nature, know that it is attainable by you as well.”
― Marcus Aurelius, The Essential Marcus Aurelius

“Do not let the future disturb you, for you will arrive there, if you arrive, with the same reason you now apply to the present.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Hour by hour resolve firmly to do what comes to hand with dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. See how little man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Whatever time you choose is the right time. Not late, not early.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Anger and the sorrow it produces are far more harmful than the things which make us angry.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Every man is worth just so much as the things about which he busies himself.”
― Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

“Frightened of change? But what can exist without it?
What’s closer to nature’s heart? Can you take a hot bath and
leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming
it? Can any vital process take place without something being
changed?

Can’t you see? It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned to you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“We must make haste, then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.”
― Marcus Aurelius, The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“10. Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small—small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with a light and superficial knowledge, nor quickly to assent to things commonly spoken”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it upwithout complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The present moment is the only thing of which anyone can be deprived, at least if this is the only thing he has and he cannot lose what he has not got.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“32. You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening. —But there are external obstacles.… Not to behaving with justice, self-control, and good sense. —Well, but perhaps to some more concrete action. But if you accept the obstacle and work with what you’re given, an alternative will present itself—another piece of what you’re trying to assemble. Action by action.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations