Living virtuously
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do.
Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.
Sanity means tying it to your own actions.~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
Rise to the work of a human being
In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Begin the morning
Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. … I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him.
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, II.1
Escape from the crush of circumstances
Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn’t from outside me but in my own assumptions.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Smile back
Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.
Be one
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
Stand erect
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.