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Who really said it

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

Not Marcus Aurelius — actually Elbert Hubbard Elbert Hubbard 1856–1915 · American writer, publisher & founder of the Roycroft community
Disputed Free to reuse

This line appears in no translation of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. It is an epigram by the American writer Elbert Hubbard, printed in his magazine ‘The Fra’ (Vol. 12, No. 6, p. 171, c. 1914) ↑ and catalogued in the “Misattributed” section of Wikiquote’s Marcus Aurelius page ↑. Its Stoic-sounding warmth is what pinned it, wrongly, to a Roman emperor.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“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” Elbert Hubbard, The Fra, Vol. 12, No. 6 (c. 1914) — popularly misattributed to Marcus Aurelius

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Marcus Aurelius. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of Elbert Hubbard — American writer, publisher & founder of the Roycroft community. Theme: "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". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "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". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it really comes from

Popularly credited to
Marcus Aurelius (misattributed)
Actually written by
Elbert Hubbard
Source
The Fra: A Journal of Affirmation, Vol. 12, No. 6 (c. 1914)
Not found in
Meditations (any translation)

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.

The wording popularly circulated as Marcus Aurelius. It is an Elbert Hubbard epigram; the em-dash is often rendered as a hyphen online.

The Fra, Vol. 12, No. 6 — Villanova Digital Library (Hubbard Collection)

The paper trail

  • Wikiquote’s Marcus Aurelius page ↑ lists this line under “Misattributed” and names the actual source as Elbert Hubbard’s magazine The Fra, Vol. 12, No. 6, p. 171.
  • The primary-source citation points to a scan I confirmed at Villanova’s Digital Library ↑, catalogued as “The Fra: a Journal of Affirmation, v.12 no.6” in the Hubbard Collection.
  • The line is absent from the sourced Meditations text on Wikiquote, yet is widely printed as Marcus Aurelius by aggregators such as Goodreads ↑, which cites Meditations with no locatable passage.
Public domain

The line first appeared in Elbert Hubbard’s magazine The Fra (Vol. 12, No. 6, c. 1914). A work published in the United States before 1931 is in the public domain, so this English original is free to reproduce. (The ancient Marcus Aurelius text to which it is falsely attributed is separately public-domain, but this wording is not his.)

Fact-check

How Hubbard became “Marcus Aurelius”

This is one of the internet’s most reproduced “Marcus Aurelius” lines — printed on mugs, posters, notebooks and meditation apps — yet it appears in none of his writing.

Marcus Aurelius Misattributed

The sentence is in no translation of the Meditations; Wikiquote ↑ files it under “Misattributed” and identifies the real author as Elbert Hubbard in The Fra (Vol. 12, No. 6, p. 171).

Elbert Hubbard Actual source

Hubbard published the epigram in his own affirmation magazine, a scan of which survives in the Villanova Digital Library Hubbard Collection ↑. Hubbard’s upbeat aphorisms were frequently re-credited to more ancient or famous names.

The words are Elbert Hubbard’s, from The Fra around 1914 — later re-labelled as ancient Stoic wisdom and pinned on Marcus Aurelius ↑.

Context

Why the mix-up sticks

Elbert Hubbard’s epigrams were engineered to be quotable: short, warm and self-improving. That same quality makes them easy to detach from their author and re-attach to whoever sounds more authoritative — and a morning meditation on being alive reads as effortlessly “Stoic.”

Marcus Aurelius is a magnet for feel-good attributions precisely because his real Meditations are private morning notes-to-self. A line about waking up grateful feels like him, so quote sites rarely stop to check that it isn’t in the text.

It reads like Marcus Aurelius. It isn’t.

How to check it yourself

Search any full translation of the Meditations (Long, Farquharson, Hays, Hard) for “precious privilege” — it returns nothing.

Wikiquote lists the line in its Marcus Aurelius “Misattributed” section with a primary citation to Hubbard’s The Fra.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Gratitude Time Happiness

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Marcus Aurelius — Misattributed (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Files this line under Misattributed and names Elbert Hubbard / The Fra as the real source.
The Fra, Vol. 12, No. 6 (Villanova Digital Library)digital.library.villanova.edu

Digitised issue of Hubbard's magazine cited as the primary source for the epigram.
Elbert Hubbard (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Background and sourced epigrams of the quote's true author.
The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (Internet Archive)archive.org

Full-text collection of Hubbard's epigrams and preachments for context on his aphoristic style.
Goodreads listing (misattributed)goodreads.com

Shows the popular but unsourced attribution to Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.

The real author

Who was Elbert Hubbard?

Elbert Hubbard

1856–1915 · American writer, publisher & founder of the Roycroft community

Elbert Hubbard was an American writer, aphorist and publisher who founded the Roycroft arts-and-crafts community in East Aurora, New York, and edited the inspirational magazines The Philistine and The Fra. He is best known for the 1899 essay A Message to Garcia and for a torrent of pithy epigrams. Hubbard and his wife died in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The Fra, Vol. 12, No. 6 (c. 1914)

Elbert Hubbard, epigram in The Fra: A Journal of Affirmation 12, no. 6 (East Aurora, NY: The Roycrofters, c. 1914): 171. Popularly misattributed to Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘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’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-you-arise-in-the-morning-think-of-what-a-precious

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