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Marcus Aurelius Quotes about Past

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Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

Marcus Aurelius
Life, Past, Men
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book III, (10), (c. 161 - 180 AD).

Past and future have no power over you. Just the present - and even that can be minimized.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Over You

If you separate from . . . everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future . . . and apply yourself to living the life that you are living-that is to say, the present-you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.

Marcus Aurelius
Live Life, Past, Serenity

Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Mind, Endurance
Marcus Aurelius (1997). “Meditations”, p.75, Wordsworth Editions

Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.

Marcus Aurelius
Life, Future, Past
"Meditations". Book by Marcus Aurelius. Book IV, 50,

Letting go all else, cling to the following few truths. Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant: all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little, too, is the longest fame to come - dependent as it is on a succession of fast-perishing little men who have no knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long dead and gone.

Marcus Aurelius
Letting Go, Truth, Past

How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear.

Marcus Aurelius
Time, Past, Two
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Emperor of Rome) (1887*). “The Meditations: Translated from the Greek”

...if a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen - thanks to their similarity - all possible happenings, both past and to come.

Marcus Aurelius
Men, Past, Years

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.

Marcus Aurelius
Men, Past, Soul
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2016). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.130, Enhanced Media Publishing

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Weight, Limits

Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.

Marcus Aurelius
Pain, Past, Mind
Marcus Aurelius (2016). “Meditations”, p.57, Enhanced Media Publishing

For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

Marcus Aurelius
Time, Men, Past
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book II, (14), (c. 161 - 180 AD).

No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? ... It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Doe, Moments
Marcus Aurelius (2006). “Meditations”, p.53, Penguin UK

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Existence, Carried Away

Remember that even if you were to live for three thousand years, or thirty thousand, you could not lose any other life than the one you have, and there will be no other life after it. So the longest and the shortest lives are the same. The present moment is shared by all living creatures, but the time that is past is gone forever. No one can lose the past or the future, for if they don't belong to you, how can they be taken from you?

Marcus Aurelius
Life, Taken, Past

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river; the "what" is in constant flux, the "why" has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us - a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Rivers, Mind
Marcus Aurelius (2002). “Meditations: A New Translation”, p.61, Modern Library

Don't let your imagination to be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to pictures everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand. ...Then remind yourself that past and present have no power over you. Only the present.

Marcus Aurelius
Past, Hands, Imagination

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