It never ceases to amaze me: We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.
- Topic: Love, Self-esteem, Society
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Marcus Aurelius
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.
Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.
There is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
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No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.
The longer I live, the more deeply l learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light.
Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.
Love means to love that which is unloveable. Otherwise it is no virtue at all.
If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.
Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.
How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?
To establish true self-esteem, we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.
We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.
Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.
Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.
We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.
Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.
When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country.
