Quote by Marcus Aurelius: “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

Most of the anxiety and frustration in life comes from trying to control things you cannot actually control. The one thing always within your reach is your own thinking and response. When you truly accept this, a quiet but genuine strength becomes available to you.

Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations as a private set of reflections, likely composed during military campaigns on the Danube frontier in the 170s CE. Rome was fighting plague — the Antonine Plague — and constant border wars, and he was governing an empire while managing the deaths of multiple children and the pressures of supreme power.

Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and Stoic philosopher whose private journal, published posthumously as Meditations, is one of the most widely read works of philosophy in history. He ruled during near-constant military conflict on Rome's borders and personal tragedies within his family.