Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Outward objects cannot take hold of the soul, nor force their passage into her, nor set any of her wheels going. No, the impression comes from herself, and it is her own motions which affect her. As for the contingencies of fortune, they are either great or little, according to the opinion she has of her own strength.

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains.

I am not driven.

Everything is generated through your own will power.

I believe you make your day. You make your life. So much of it is all perception, and this is the form that I built for myself. I have to accept it and work within those compounds, and it's up to me.

I follow my own head. And if I'm determined to do something, then I'll make sure that I make it happen.

What people have thought of me, of the turns that I've taken, has never really played into my decisions.

The only pressure you put on yourself is the one you want to. No one else can pressurise you.

The only thing on earth that can determine itself is a human soul.

The power to affect your future lies within your own hands.

Being Adam Parrish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival. The most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master. This was the important thing. It had always been the important thing. This was what it was to be Adam.

Other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.

I cannot give up my will - I must exercise it, putting it into action.

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.

You... and only you choose your thoughts.

You play a part in every aspect of your life going the way you want or not going the way that you want. It has very little to do with other people.

Don't do something just because someone else wants you to

You are fully responsible for everything you are, everything you have and everything you become.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

I wish my life and decisions to depend upon myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, not other men's, acts of will. I wish to be the subject, not an object...I wish to be somebody, not nobody; a doer - deciding, not being decided for, slef-directed and not acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I were a thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, that is, of conceiving goals and policies of my own and realizing them.

You are the power in your world! You get to have whatever you choose to think!

We must give up the silly idea of folding our hands and waiting on God to do everything for us. If God had intended for that, then he would not have given us a mind. Whatever you want in life, you must make up your mind to do it for yourself.

When it comes to individual destiny, there is no power greater in the universe then the conviction of the human soul to make a choice.