If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it.
This is a note from the last book of the Meditations, written near the end of Marcus’s life. It sets two plain tests for conduct: whether an act is right, and whether a statement is true.
Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.
Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, / The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.