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For Nowhere Either With More Quiet Or More Freedom From Trouble Does A Man Retire Than Into His Own Soul, Particularly When He Has Within Him Such Thoughts That By Looking Into Them He Is Immediately In Perfect Tranquility; And I Affirm That Tranquility Is Nothing Else Than The Good Ordering Of The Mind.
-Marcus Aurelius
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For Nowhere Either With

Marcus Aurelius
For Nowhere Either With More Quiet Or More Freedom From Trouble Does A Man Retire Than Into His Own Soul, Particularly When He Has Within Him Such Thoughts That By Looking Into Them He Is Immediately In Perfect Tranquility; And I Affirm That Tranquility Is Nothing Else Than The Good Ordering Of The Mind.
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Peace
Men
Perfect
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"sweep Me Up And Send Me Where You Please." For There I Will Retain My Spirit, Tranquil And Content, As Long As It Can Feel And Act In Harmony With Its Own Nature. Is A Change Of Place Enough Reason For My Soul To Become Unhappy And Worn, For Me To Become Depressed, Humbled, Cowering, And Afraid? Can You Discover Any Reasons For This?
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The True Joy Of Humankind Is In Doing That Which Is Most Proper To Our Nature; And The First Property Of People Is To Be Kindly Affected Towards Them That Are Of One Kind With Ourselves.
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Whatever The Universal Nature Assigns To Any Man At Any Time Is For The Good Of That Man At That Time.
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To Them That Ask: Where Hast Thou Seen The Gods, Or How Knowest Thou Certainly That There Be Gods, That Thou Art So Devout In Their Worship? I Answer: Neither Have I Seen My Own Soul, And Yet I Respect And Honor It.
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And Yet, After All, What Is Posthumous Fame? Altogether Vanity.
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The Whole Contains Nothing That Is Not For Its Advantage. By Remembering That I Am Part Of Such A Whole, I Shall Be Content With Everything That Happens.
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Be Not Disgusted, Nor Discouraged, Nor Dissatisfied, If Thou Dost Not Succeed In Doing Everything According To Right Principles; But When Thou Bast Failed, Return Back Again, And Be Content If The Greater Part Of What Thou Doest Is Consistent With Man's Nature, And Love This To Which Thou Returnest
Love
Men
Return Back
The Mind Which Is Free From Passions Is A Citadel, For Man Has Nothing More Secure To Which He Can Fly For Refuge And For The Future Be Inexpugnable . He Then Who Has Not Seen This Is An Ignorant Man: But He Who Has Seen It And Does Not Fly To This Refuge Is Unhappy.
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Ignorant
If Someone Can Prove Me Wrong And Show Me My Mistake In Any Thought Or Action, I Shall Gladly Change. I Seek The Truth, Which Never Harmed Anyone: The Harm Is To Persist In One's Own Self-deception And Ignorance.
Mistake
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Self
Here Is The Rule To Remember In The Future, When Anything Tempts You To Be Bitter: Not, 'this Is A Misfortune' But 'to Bear This Worthily Is Good Fortune.'
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Bitterness
Bears
When You Arise In The Morning, Think Of What A Precious Privilege It Is To Be Alive - To Breathe, To Think, To Enjoy, To Love ... Then Make That Day Count!
Thinking
Breathe
Enjoy
What Matter And Opportunity [for Thy Activity] Art Thou Avoiding? For What Else Are All These Things, Except Exercises For The Reason, When It Has Viewed Carefully And By Examination Into Their Nature The Things Which Happen In Life? Persevere Then Until Thou Shalt Have Made These Things Thy Own, As The Stomach Which Is Strengthened Makes All Things Its Own, As The Blazing Fire Makes Flame And Brightness Out Of Everything That Is Thrown Into It.
Art
Exercise
Opportunity
All Is As Thinking Makes It So
Thinking
Think Of Yourself As Dead. You Have Lived Your Life. Now, Take What's Left And Live It Properly. What Doesn't Transmit Light Creates Its Own Darkness.
Inspirational
Thinking
Light
Not To Waste Time On Nonsense. Not To Be Taken In By Conjurors And Hoodoo Artists With Their Talk About Incantations And Exorcism And All The Rest Of It. Not To Be Obsessed With Quail-fighting Or Other Crazes Like That.
Taken
Fighting
Artist
Each Thing Is Of Like Form From Everlasting And Comes Round Again In Its Cycle...
Philosophical
Form
Everlasting
Consider How Many Do Not Even Know Your Name, And How Many Will Soon Forget It, And How Those Who Now Praise You Will Presently Blame You.
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Blame
Forget
The Universal Nature Has No External Space; But The Wondrous Part Of Her Art Is That Though She Has Circumscribed Herself, Everything Which Is Within Her Which Appears To Decay And To Grow Old And To Be Useless She Changes Into Herself, And Again Makes Other New Things From These Very Same, So That She Requires Neither Substance From Without Nor Wants A Place Into Which She May Cast That Which Decays. She Is Content Then With Her Own Space, And Her Own Matter, And Her Own Art.
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Decay
No One Loses Any Other Life Than The One He Now Lives, Nor Does One Live Any Other Life Than That Which He Will Lose.
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Loses
In One Way An Arrow Moves, In Another Way The Mind. The Mind Indeed, Both When It Exercises Caution And When It Is Employed About Inquiry, Moves Straight Onward Not The Less, And To Its Object.
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It Is Man's Peculiar Duty To Love Even Those Who Wrong Him.
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Duty
We Must Press On Then, In Haste; Not Simply Because Every Hour Brings Us Nearer To Death, But Because Even Before Then Our Powers Of Perception And Comprehension Begin To Deteriorate.
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Haste
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I Can At Once Become Happy Anywhere, For He Is Happy Who Has Found Himself A Happy Lot. In A Word, Happiness Lies All In The Functions Of Reason, In Warrantable Desires And Virtuous Practice.
Happiness
Lying
Practice
I Search After Truth, By Which Man Never Yet Was Harmed.
Truth
Men
Vex Not Thy Spirit At The Course Of Things, They Heed Not Thy Vexations
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Spirit
Courses
The Soul Is Dyed By The Thoughts. Dye It Then, With A Continuous Series Of Such Thoughts As These - That Where A Man Can Live, There - If He Will - He Can Also Live Well.
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Soul
Live Well
Treat With Utmost Respect Your Power Of Forming Opinions, For This Power Alone Guards You Against Making Assumptions That Are Contrary To Nature And Judgments That Overthrow The Rule Of Reason.
Opinion
Assumption
Judgment
The Impediment To Action Advances Action. What Stands In The Way Becomes The Way.
Way
Action
Obstacles
I Am Called To Man's Labour; Why Then Do I Make A Difficulty If I Am Going Out To Do What I Was Born To Do And What I Was Brought Into The World For?
Men
Going Out
World
The Happiness And Unhappiness Of The Rational, Social Animal Depends Not On What He Feels But On What He Does; Just As His Virtue And Vice Consist Not In Feeling But In Doing.
Happiness
Laughter
Animal
This Is The Chief Thing: Be Not Perturbed, For All Things Are According To The Nature Of The Universal.
Destiny
Chiefs
All Things
Retire Into Thyself. The Rational Principle Which Rules Has This Nature, That It Is Content With Itself When It Does What Is Just, And So Secures Tranquility.
Principles
Doe
Tranquility
The Only Wealth Which You Will Keep Forever Is The Wealth You Have Given Away.
Philosophical
Forever
Keep Moving Forward
But That Which Is Useful Is The Better.
Does A Man Shrink From Change? Why, What Can Come Into Being Save By Change?
Change
Shrinks
Once You Have Done A Man A Service, What More Reward Would You Have? Is It Not Enough To Have Obeyed The Laws Of Your Own Nature, Without Expecting To Be Paid For It?
Men
Law
Done
There Is Nothing Happens To Any Person But What Was In His Power To Go Through With.
Philosophical
Persons
Happens
A Great Estate Is A Great Disadvantage To Those Who Do Not Know How To Use It, For Nothing Is More Common Than To See Wealthy Persons Live Scandalously And Miserably; Riches Do Them No Service In Order To Virtue And Happiness; Therefore 'tis Precept And Principle, Not An Estate, That Makes A Man Good For Something.
Men
Order
Principles
All Things From Eternity Are Of Like Forms And Come Round In Circle.
Circles
Eternity
Form
Everything That Happens Happens As It Should, And If You Observe Carefully, You Will Find This To Be So.
Inspirational
Philosophical
Failure
When You Find An Unwillingness To Rise Early In The Morning, Endeavor To Rouse Your Faculties, And Act Up To Your Kind, And Consider That You Have To Do The Business Of A Man; And That Action Is Both Beneficial And The End Of Your Being.
Morning
Men
Action
We Are Born For Cooperation
Cooperation
Born
Forward, As Occasion Offers. Never Look Round To See Whether Any Shall Note It.... Be Satisfied With Success In Even The Smallest Matter, And Think That Even Such A Result Is No Trifle.
Life
Thinking
Looks
If You Are Pained By External Things, It Is Not They That Disturb You, But Your Own Judgement Of Them. And It Is In Your Power To Wipe Out That Judgement Now.
Inspirational
Power
Judging
When You Arise In The Morning, Think Of What A Precious Privilege It Is To Be Alive - To Breathe, To Think, To Enjoy, To Love.
Love
Inspirational
Life
Observe Always That Everything Is The Result Of A Change, And Get Used To Thinking That There Is Nothing Nature Loves So Well As To Change Existing Forms And To Make New Ones Like Them.
Inspirational
Nature
Healing
All That Is From The Gods Is Full Of Providence.
Providence
All Things Fade And Quickly Turn To Myth.
Myth
Turns
All Things
Understand However That Every Man Is Worth Just So Much As The Things Are Worth About Which He Busies Himself.
Men
Every Man
Can We Wonder That Men Perish And Are Forgotten, When Their Noblest And Most Enduring Works Decay? Death Comes Even To Monumental Structures, And Oblivion Rests On The Most Illustrious Names.
Death
Men
Names
Because Your Own Strength Is Unequal To The Task, Do Not Assume That It Is Beyond The Powers Of Man; But If Anything Is Within The Powers And Province Of Man, Believe That It Is Within Your Own Compass Also.
Life
Strength
Believe
The World Is A Living Being - One Nature, One Soul. Keep That In Mind.
Soul
Mind
World
So You Know How Things Stand. Now Forget What They Think Of You. Be Satisfied If You Can Live The Rest Of Your Life, However Short, As Your Nature Demands. Focus On That, And Don't Let Anything Distract You. You've Wandered All Over And Finally Realized That You Never Found What You Were After: How To Live. Not In Syllogisms, Not In Money, Or Fame, Or Self-indulgence. Nowhere.
Thinking
Self
Focus
Reflect Often Upon The Rapidity With Which All Existing Things, Or Things Coming Into Existence, Sweep Past Us And Are Carried Away.
Past
Existence
Carried Away
Everything That Exists Is In A Manner The Seed Of That Which Will Be.
Work
Fate
Manifestation
The Universe Is Transformation: Life Is Opinion.
Opinion
Transformation
Life Is
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.
Life
Past
Men
Accept The Things To Which Fate Binds You, And Love The People With Whom Fate Brings You Together, But Do So With All Your Heart.
Love
Inspirational
Valentines Day
Look Within, For Within Is The Wellspring Of Virtue, Which Will Not Cease Flowing, If You Cease Not From Digging.
Motivational
Golf
Self Improvement
In Man's Life, Time Is But A Moment; Being, A Flux; Sense Is Dim; The Material Frame Corruptible; Soul, An Eddy Of Breath; Fortune A Thing Inscrutable, And Fame Precarious.
Life
Men
Soul
A Man Makes No Noise Over A Good Deed, But Passes On To Another As A Vine To Bear Grapes Again In Season.
Men
Vines
Deeds
Run Down The List Of Those Who Felt Intense Anger At Something: The Most Famous, The Most Unfortunate, The Most Hated, The Most Whatever: Where Is All That Now? Smoke, Dust, Legend...or Not Even A Legend. Think Of All The Examples. And How Trivial The Things We Want So Passionately Are.
Running
Thinking
Dust
In The Same Degree In Which A Man's Mind Is Nearer To Freedom From All Passion, In The Same Degree Also Is It Nearer To Strength.
Anger
Passion
Men
Be Content With What You Are, And Wish Not Change; Nor Dread Your Last Day, Nor Long For It.
Fear
Philosophy
Philosophical
When Pain Is Unbearable It Destroys Us; When It Does Not It Is Bearable.
Hurt
Pain
Doe
Consider, For Example, And You Will Find That Almost All The Transactions In The Time Of Vespasian Differed Little From Those Of The Present Day. You There Find Marrying And Giving In Marriage, Educating Children, Sickness, Death, War, Joyous Holidays, Traffic, Agriculture, Flatterers, Insolent Pride, Suspicions, Laying Of Plots, Longing For The Death Of Others, Newsmongers, Lovers, Misers, Men Canvassing Far The Consulship And For The Kingdom; Yet All These Passed Away, And Are Nowhere.
Children
War
Holiday
I Was Once A Fortunate Man But At Some Point Fortune Abandoned Me. But True Good Fortune Is What You Make For Yourself. Good Fortune: Good Character, Good Intentions, And Good Actions.
Character
Men
Action
Remember How Often You Have Postponed Minding Your Interest, And Let Slip Those Opportunities The Gods Have Given You. It Is Now High Time To Consider What Sort Of World You Are Part Of, And From What Kind Of Governor Of It You Are Descended; That You Have A Set Period Assigned You To Act In, And Unless You Improve It To Brighten And Compose Your Thoughts, It Will Quickly Run Off With You, And Be Lost Beyond Recovery.
Running
Time
Recovery
Get Rid Of The Judgement ... Get Rid Of The 'i Am Hurt,' You Are Rid Of The Hurt Itself.
Hurt
Judgement
I Am Hurt
Without A Purpose, Nothing Should Be Done.
Purpose
Done
Should
Be Satisfied With Your Business, And Learn To Love What You Were Bred To.
Satisfaction
Satisfied
One Of The Recurring Themes In Marcus' Handbook Is Leadership's Responsibility To Work Intelligently With What It Is Given And Not Waste Time Fantasizing About A World Of Flawless People And Perfect Choices.
Responsibility
People
Perfect
Keep Constantly In Mind In How Many Things You Yourself Have Witnessed Changes Already. The Universe Is Change, Life Is Understanding.
Change
Life Changing
Understanding
Let No Act Be Done Without Purpose.
Purpose
Done
How Much More Grievous Are The Consequences Of Anger Than The Causes Of It.
Love
Family
Happiness
How Soon Will Time Cover All Things.
All Things
When Thou Art Above Measure Angry, Bethink Thee How Momentary Is Man's Life.
Life
Art
Anger
Your Task Is To Stand Straight; Not To Be Held Straight.
Character
Tasks
Receive Wealth Or Prosperity Without Arrogance; And Be Ready To Let It Go.
Arrogance
Let It Go
Wealth
All Men Are Made One For Another: Either Then Teach Them Better Or Bear With Them.
Patience
Men
Tolerance
Neither In Thy Actions Be Sluggish Nor In Thy Conversation Without Method, Nor Wandering In Thy Thoughts, Nor Let There Be In Thy Soul Inward Contention Nor External Effusion, Nor In Life Be So Busy As To Have No Leisure.
Soul
Leisure
Inward
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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