“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“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.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In contrast, the following few quotes are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian poet, philosopher and court mathematician:
VII.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly – and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now!
XVI.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two – is gone.
XXII.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears –
To-morrow? – Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years
XXV.
Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie;
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!
XXVIII
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was – and then no more of Thee and Me.
XXXV.
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean’d, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur’d – ‘While you live,
Drink! – for, once dead, you never shall return.
XLIII.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
Biography Section
Omar Khayyam – (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian
mathematician, astronomer, and poet.[3][4][5] He was born in Nishapur, in
northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid
and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade.
Marcus Aurelius – Latin: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; 26 April 121 –
17 March 180 was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher.
He was the last of the rulers traditionally known as the Five Good Emperors,
and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability
for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.