quote · Legacy record
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?' You would be ashamed to confess it! And then remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present, and the power of this is much diminished if you take it in isolation and call your mind to task if it thinks that it cannot stand up to it when taken on its own.
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?' You would be ashamed to confess it! And then remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present, and the power of this is much diminished if you take it in isolation and call your mind to task if it thinks that it cannot stand up to it when taken on its own.
Approximate author period: c. 150 AD · classical
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- Author or tradition
- Marcus Aurelius
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 150 AD · classical
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 121 to 180; Wikidata Q1430, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1430 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 259837; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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