When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE), Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, wrote his private notes—later known as the *Meditations*—as exercises in self-discipline and moral clarity, likely during military campaigns on the Danube frontier in the 170s CE. The morning-reminder sentiment fits the work’s recurring practice of beginning the day with deliberate attention: preparing the mind for hardship, correcting attitudes, and recommitting to virtue. Although often quoted as a standalone inspirational line, it reflects Aurelius’s broader Stoic project of treating each day as a fresh opportunity to live rationally, gratefully, and in accordance with nature.

The line frames waking up not as routine but as a moral and existential gift. By calling life a “privilege,” Aurelius urges a shift from complaint to gratitude, and from passive drifting to intentional living. The listed capacities—being alive, thinking, enjoying, loving—highlight what Stoicism treats as properly “ours”: the use of reason and the choice to meet experience with a virtuous disposition. The ellipsis often used in modern citations suggests an ongoing practice rather than a finished slogan: each morning is a chance to remember what matters, to value human faculties, and to act with benevolence before the day’s pressures narrow one’s perspective.