One’s virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.
No man is so completely happy that something somewhere does not clash with his condition. It is the nature of human affairs to be fraught with anxiety; they never prosper perfectly and they never remain constant.
Fortune’s Malice. Mad Fortune sweeps along in wanton pride, Uncertain as Euripus’ surging tide; Now tramples mighty kings beneath her feet; Now sets the conquered in the victor’s seat. She heedeth not the wail of hapless woe, But mocks the griefs that from her mischief flow. Such is her sport; so proveth she her power; And great the marvel, when in one brief hour She shows her darling lifted high in bliss, Then headlong plunged in misery’s abyss.
Has the world become so topsy-turvy that a living creature, whom the gift of reason makes divine, believes that his glory lies solely in possession of lifeless goods?
The answer is this. It is impossible for the two events I mentioned just now – the rising of the sun and the man walking – not to be happening when they do happen; and yet it was necessary for one of them to happen before it did happen, but not so for the other.
Frequently, like a kind of reward for wickedness, it causes great illness and unbearable pain for those who make it their source of enjoyment.
All pleasures have one quality alike: They drive their devotees with goads. And like a swarm of bees upon the wing, They first pour out their honey loads, Then turn and strike their victim’s heart And leave behind their deep set sting.
It is nothing serious, only a touch of amnesia that he is suffering, the common disease of deluded minds. He has forgotten for a while who he is, but he will soon remember once he has recognized me. To make it easier for him I will wipe a little of the blinding cloud of worldly concern from his eyes.
Avoid vice, therefore, and cultivate virtue; lift up your mind to the right kind of hope, and put forth humble prayers on high.
Wherein the main point to be considered is this: the higher faculty of comprehension embraces the lower, while the lower cannot rise to the higher.
Really, the misfortunes which are now such a cause of grief ought to be reasons for tranquility. For now she has deserted you, and no man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune.
For this cause I have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice.
If dangerous hazards loom close by, Don’t choose a site to please the eye. Play safe. Above all, don’t forget To build your house on rock deep-set. Enclosed.
It is not that a man of virtue is honored because of high office, but rather that the office is honored because of his virtue.
If first you rid yourself of hope and fear you have disarmed the tyrant’s wrath: but whosoever quakes in fear or hope, drifting and losing master, has cast away his shield, has left his place, and binds the chains with which he will be bound.
Let the rich man increase his hoard – it is never enough. All that gold, and all those Red Sea pearls that hang from his pudgy neck, they only weigh him down. Out in his fields, hundreds of oxen plough, but still the furrows of care are deep in his creased brow, and he worries about those riches he can’t take with him.
Ill Fortune is of more use to men than Good Fortune.
For many have won a great name through the mistaken beliefs of the multitude – and what can be imagined more shameful than that?
It is no wonder then if the winds storm around us on the ocean of this life, since our greatest imperative is to displease the wicked. But we should despise the wicked even if they are a great multitude, for they are governed by no leader, but are blindly pulled in all directions by frantic error.
For the nature of man is such that he is better than other things only when he knows himself, and yet if he ceases to know himself he is made lower than the brutes. For it is natural for other animals not to have this self-knowledge; in man it is a fault. How far from your true state have you wandered when you think you can be at all improved by the addition of the beauties of other things!
Jeder hat in sich etwas, das man nicht kennt, solange man es nicht erprobt hat; hat man es aber erprobt – schaudert man.