Comments & Greek artists, Greek painters: Look back over the past...

Roman quotes & greek artists, greek painters, greek paintings


Yannis Stavrou, Roman Monument, Rotonda, oil on canvas

Do not forget the Romans...

A precious source of knowledge for history, politics, future, humans...

Marcus Aurelius
Quotations

• A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
• A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.
• A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
• Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
• Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.
• And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
• Anger cannot be dishonest.
• Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
• Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.
• As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape, So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.
• Be content to seem what you really are.
• Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
• Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
• Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
• Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
• Confine yourself to the present.
• Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
• Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.
• Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
• Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
• Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
• Each day provides its own gifts.
• Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.
• Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
• Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
• Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.
• Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it... Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.
• He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
• Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, "This is a misfortune" but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."
• How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
• How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.
• 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.
• If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
• It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
• Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.
• Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.
• Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
• Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
• Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.