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Pensées pour moi-même
Marc AurèleMarc Aurèle citations célèbres
Pensées
Marc Aurèle Citations
Marc Aurèle: Citations en anglais
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
Source: Meditations
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
VI, 6
Variante: The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
Source: Meditations
Variante: If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Source: Meditations
Meditations. iv. 17.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”
Source: Meditations
Hays translation
Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee. What then can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just? For instance, if a man should stand by a limpid pure spring, and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up potable water; and if he should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily disperse them and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. How then shalt thou possess a perpetual fountain? By forming thyself hourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicity and modesty.
VIII, 51
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Misattributed
Source: Cited as being from The Meditations. This quote does not exist there; although there are several other statements about everything being an opinion, none of these are connected to a sentence about perspectives.
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.
X, 16
Variante: Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Misattributed
Source: The first citation appears in a translation of Leo Tolstoy's Bethink Yourselves! http://www.nonresistance.org/docs_htm/Tolstoy/~Bethink_Yourselves/BY_chapter08.html by NONRESISTANCE.ORG. The claim made that it is from Marcus Aurelius. Nothing closely resembling it appears in Meditations, nor does it appear in a 1904 translation of Bethink Yourselves http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/bethink-yourselves/8/. The 1904 translation may be abridged, whereas the NONRESISTANCE.ORG translation claims to be unabridged.
X, 35
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Contexte: The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.
“For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.”
X, 11
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Contexte: Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.... But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.
“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.”
Source: Meditations
“The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.”
Source: Meditations
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.”
Variante: The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Source: Meditations
