No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Marcus addresses himself, an emperor who spent much of his reign on military campaign. Newer translations word the line more briskly, and it circulates online in many shortened versions; this is Long’s wording.
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.