Ancient Roman Philosophers

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

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

—Cicero

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

—Marcus Aurelius

Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’

—Marcus Aurelius

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

—Marcus Aurelius

External thinks are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.

—Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking

—Marcus Aurelius

I came, I saw, I conquered.

—Julius Caesar

It’s only hubris if I fail.

—Julius Caesar

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

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

—Marcus Aurelius

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

—Marcus Aurelius

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

—Marcus Aurelius

In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.

—Julius Caesar

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

—Cicero

The difference between a republic and an empire is the loyalty of one’s army.

—Julius Caesar

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

—Marcus Aurelius

Men willingly believe what they wish.

—Julius Caesar

Which death is preferably to every other? ‘The unexpected’.

—Julius Caesar

He conquers twice, who shows mercy to the conquered.

—Julius Caesar

The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look.

—Julius Caesar

Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

—Cicero

I love treason but hate a traitor.

—Julius Caesar

Wine and other luxuries have a tendency to enervate the mind and make men less brave in battle.

—Julius Caesar

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

—Cicero

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

—Julius Caesar

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.

—Julius Caesar

Arms and laws do not flourish together.

—Julius Caesar

A coward dies a thousand deaths, the gallant never taste of death but once.

—Julius Caesar

All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.

—Julius Caesar