Source identified1
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
Retaliation is rejected when it would reproduce the very behavior one condemns.
Source note: Meditations 6.6; wording varies by translation.
Meditations Quotes by Marcus Aurelius: Context & Meanings
4 quotations linked to Meditations by or associated with Marcus Aurelius, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Edition and date context
c. 170 CE work · represented Casaubon English edition
Dates represented in this collection: c. 170 · c. 170 CE. Individual quotation notes provide the most specific context for a passage.
English wording
Translation
Meric Casaubon — Translator · Ancient Greek → English
The wording shown here follows the represented English edition or translation.
Why the edition matters
Translations and editions can differ in wording, punctuation and emphasis, so the source attached to each quotation matters when exact phrasing is important.
Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
Represented passages
4 quotations with source context and meaning
Source identified2
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
The instruction moves moral philosophy from debate to conduct: character is demonstrated through action.
Source note: Meditations 10.16; wording varies by translation.
Source identified3
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
The line emphasizes the role of habitual judgment in shaping lived experience, a recurring theme in Stoic practice.
Source note: Common English rendering of a passage in Meditations; wording varies by translation.
Source identified4
“Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which though the waves beat continually, yet it stands.”
The image recommends steadiness under repeated pressure: external disturbance can arrive continuously without requiring inner collapse.
Source note: Meditations, Book IV, in the public-domain Casaubon-style English text distributed by Project Gutenberg.