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07 - The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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What is badness? It is that which thou hast often seen, and on
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the occasion of everything which happens, keep this in mind, that it is
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that which thou hast often seen. Everywhere up and down thou wilt find the
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same things with which the old histories are filled, those of the Middle Ages,
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and those of our own day with which cities and houses are filled.
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Now there is nothing new. All things are both familiar and short lived.
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Two. How can our principles become dead unless the impressions thoughts which correspond to
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them are extinguished. But it is in thy power continuously to fan these thoughts
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into a flame. I can have that opinion about anything which I ought to
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have. If I can, why am I disturbed? The things which are
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external to my mind have no relation at all to my mind. Let this
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be the state of thy effects, and thou standest erect to recover thy life
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is in thy power look at things again as thou didst use to look at
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them, For in this consists the recovery of thy life. Three. The
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idle business of show plays on the stage. Flocks of sheep herds, exercises
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with spears, a bone to cast to little dogs, a bit of bread
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into fish ponds, laborings of ants, and burden, carrying, runnings about
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of frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings, all alike. It is
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thy duty, then, in the midst of such things, to show good
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humor and not a proud air. To understand, however, that every man
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is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.
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Four. In discourse thou must attend to what is said, and in
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every movement thou must observe what is doing. And in the one thou shouldst
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see immediately to what end it refers. But in the other watch carefully what
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is the thing signified? Five Is my understanding sufficient for this or not?
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If it is sufficient, I use it for the work as an instrument given
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by the universal nature. But if it is not sufficient, then either I
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retire from the work and give way to him who is able to do it
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better, unless there be some reason why I ought not to do so,
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or I do it as well as I can, taking to help me the
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man who, with the aid of my ruling principle, can do what is
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now fit and useful for the general good. For whatsoever, either by myself
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or with another I can do. Ought to be directed to this, only
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to that which is useful and well suited to society. Sick, how many,
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after being celebrated by fame, have been given up to oblivion, And
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how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead. Seven,
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Be not ashamed to be helped. For it is thy business to do
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thy duty, like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then,
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if being lame, thou canst not mount up on the battlements alone,
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but with the help of another, it is possible. Eight. Let not
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future things disturb THEE, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall
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be necessary, having with THEE the same reason which now thou usest for present
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things. Nine, All things are implicated with one another, and the bond
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is holy. And there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing, for
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things have been coordinated, and they combine to form the same universe order.
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For there is one universe made up of all things, and one God who
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pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, one common reason
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in all intelligent animals, and one truth. If indeed, there is also
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one perfection for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in the
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same reason. Ten, Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole,
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and everything formal causal is very soon taken back into the universal reason,
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and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time. Eleven. To
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the rational animal, the same act is according to nature and according to reason.
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Twelve, Be thou erect, or be made erect. Thirteen. Just
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as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in one,
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so it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have been constituted
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for one cooperation. And the perception of this will be more apparent to THEE.
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If thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member of the system
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of rational beings. But if thou sayest that thou art a part, thou
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dost not yet love men from thy heart. Beneficence does not yet delight THEE
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for its own sake, Thou still doest it barely as a thing of propriety,
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and not yet as doing good to thyself. Fourteen. Let there fall
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externally what will on the parts which can feel the effects of this fall.
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For those parts which have felt will complain if they choose. But I,
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unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured.
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And it is in my power not to think so. Fifteen Whatever anyone does
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or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or
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the emerald or the purple were always saying this, Whatever any one does or
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says, I must be emerald and keep my color. Sixteen. The ruling
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faculty does not disturb itself, I mean, does not frighten itself or cause
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itself pain. But if any one else can frighten or pain it, let
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him do so, for the faculty itself will not, by its own opinion,
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turn into such ways. Let the body itself take care if it can,
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let it suffer nothing, and let it speak if it suffers. But
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the soul itself, that which is subject to fear to pain, which has
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completely the power of forming an opinion about these things, will suffer nothing,
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for it will never deviate into such a judgment. The leading principle in itself
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wants nothing unless it makes a want for itself, and therefore it is both
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free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not disturb and impede itself Seventeen,
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You daemonia, happiness is a good demon or a good thing? What
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then art thou doing here? O imagination? Go away? I entreat thee
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by the gods, as thou didst come, for I want THEE not,
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but thou art come according to thy old fashion. I am not angry with
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thee. Only go away? Eighteen Is any man afraid of change? Why?
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What can take place without change? What then, is more pleasing or
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more suitable to the universal nature? And canst thou take a bath unless the
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wood undergoes a change? And can thou be nourished unless the food undergoes a
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change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Dost
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thou not see then that for thyself also to change is just the same and
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equally necessary for the universal nature. Nineteen Through the universal substance, as through
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a furious torrent, all bodies are carried, being by their nature, united
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with and cooperating with the whole, as the parts of our body with one
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another. How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates? How many an
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Epictectus? As time already swallowed up and let the same thought occur to thee
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with reference to every man and thing. Twenty one. Thing only troubles me
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lest I should do something which the constitution of man does not allow, or
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in the way which it does not allow, or what it does not allow.
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Now twenty one, near is thy forgetfulness of all things, and near
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the forgetfulness of THEE by all. Twenty two it is peculiar to man to
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love even those who do wrong. And this happens if when they do wrong,
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it occurs to THEE that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong
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through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die, And
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above all that the wrong doer has done THEE no harm, for he has
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not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before. Twenty three. The
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universal nature, out of the universal substance, as if it were wax,
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now molds a horse, And when it has broken this up, it uses
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the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else.
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And each of these things subsists for a very short time. But it
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is no hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was
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none in its being fastened together. Twenty four. A scowling look is altogether
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unnatural. When it is often assumed, the result is that all comeliness dies
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away, and at last is so completely extinguished that it cannot be again lighted
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up at all. Try to conclude from this very fact that it is contrary
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to reason. For if even the perception of doing wrong shall depart, what
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reason is therefore living any longer. Twenty five Nature which governs the whole will
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soon change all things which thou seest, and out of their substance will make
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other things, and again other things from the substance of them, in order
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that the world may ever be new. Twenty six. When a man has
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done thee any wrong meeting, consider with what opinion about good or evil he
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has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him,
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and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. For either thou thyself thinkest the
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same thing to be good that he does, or another thing of the same
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kind. It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if thou dost
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not think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be
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well disposed to him who is in error. Twenty seven Think not so much
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of what thou hast, not as of what thou hast, but of the
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things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they
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would have been sought if thou hadst them not. At the same time,
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however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them,
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accustom thyself to over value them, so as to be disturbed, if
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ever, thou shouldst not have them. Twenty eight. Retire into thyself.
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The rational principle which rules, has this nature, that it is content with
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itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility. Twenty nine.
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Wipe out the imagination, stop the pulling of the strings, Confine thyself
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to the present. Understand well what happens either to thee or to another.
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Divide and distribute every object into the causal, formal, and the material.
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Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a man
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stay there where the wrong was done. Thirty Direct thy attention to what is
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said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things
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which do them. Thirty one. Adorn thyself with simplicity and modesty, and
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with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice, love, mankind,
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follow God. The poet says that law rules all, and it is
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enough to remember that law rules all. Thirty two about death, whether it
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is a dispersion or a resolution into atoms or annihilation, it is either extinction
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or change. Thirty three about pain. The pain which is intolerable carries us
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off, But that which lasts a long time is tolerable. And the mind
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maintains its own tranquility by retiring into itself. And the ruling faculty is not
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made worse. But the parts which are harmed by pain, let them if
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they can give their opinion about it. Thirty four about fame. Look at
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the minds of those who seek fame. Observe what they are, and what
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kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue. And
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consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands,
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so in life, the events which go before are soon covered by those
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which come after. Thirty five from Plato. The man who has an elevated
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mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou
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suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great. It
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is not possible, he said, such a man then will think that death
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also is no evil, certainly not thirty six from Antistheni's it is royal to
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do good and to be abused. Thirty seven. It is a base thing
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for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind
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commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.
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Thirty eight. It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they
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care not about it. Thirty nine. To the immortal gods and us give
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joy. Forty Life must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn. One
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man is born, another dies Forty one. If gods care not for me
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and for my children, there is a reason for it forty two. For
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the good is with me and the just forty three. No joining others in
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their wailing, no violent emotion forty four from Plato. But I would make
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this man a sufficient answer, Which is this? Thou sayest not well if
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thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything at all ought to compute
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the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only
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in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust,
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and the works of a good or a bad man forty five. For
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thus it is men of Athens in truth. Wherever a man has placed himself
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thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander,
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there, in my opinion, he ought to stay and to abide the
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hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else before the
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baseiusness of deserting his post. Forty six. But, my good friend,
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reflect whether that which is noble and good is not something different from saving and
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being saved, For as to a man living such or such a time,
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at least one who is really a man, consider if this is not a
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thing to be dismissed from the thoughts, and there must be no love of
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life. But as to these matters, a man must entrust them to the
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deity, and believe that what the women say, that no man can escape
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his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that
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he has to live. Forty seven. Look round at the courses of the
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stars, as if thou wert going along with them, and constantly consider the
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changes of the elements into one another. For such thoughts purge away the filth
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of the Treene Life forty eight. This is a fine saying of Plato that
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he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things, as if
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he viewed them from some higher place, should look at them in their assemblies,
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armies, agricultural labors, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise
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of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts,
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lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things, and an orderly combination
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of contraries. Forty nine. Consider the past such great changes of political supremacies,
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Thou mayst foresee also the things which will be, For they will certainly
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be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from
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the order of the things which take place now. Accordingly, to have contemplated
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human life forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand
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years. For what more wilt thou see fifty that which has grown from the
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earth to the earth, but that which has sprung from heavenly seed back to
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the heavenly realm's returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of
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the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the insancient elements fifty one, with
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food and drinks and cunning magic arts turning the channel's course. To escape from
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death the breeze which Heaven has sent, we must endure and toil without complaining.
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Fifty two. Another baby may be more expert in casting his opponent,
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but he is not more social, nor more modest, nor better discipline to
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meet all that happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his
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neighbors. Fifty three. Where any work can be done conformably to the reason
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which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear for.
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Where we are able to get profits by means of the activity which is
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successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.
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Fifty four. Everywhere and at all times, it is in thy power
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piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who
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are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that
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nothing shall steal into them without being well examined. Fifty five. Do not
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look around thee to discover other men's ruling principles, but look straight to this
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to what nature leads thee, both the universal nature through the things which happen
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to THEE, and thy own nature through the acts which must be done by
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THEE. But every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution,
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And all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings,
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just as among irrational things, the inferior for the sake of the superior,
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but the rational for the sake of one another. The prime principle, then,
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in man's constitution is the social and the second is not to yield to
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the persuasions of the body. For it is the peculiar office of the rational
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and intelligent motion to circumscribe itself, and never to be overpowered either by the
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motion of the senses or of the appetites. For both our animal. But
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the intelligent motion claims superiority and does not permit itself to be overpowered by the
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others, and with good reason, for it is formed by nature to use
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all of them. The third thing in the rational constitution is freedom from error
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and from deception. Let then, the ruling principle, holding fast to these
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things, go straight on, and it has what is its own fifty six,
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Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to
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the present time, and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed to
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THEE. Fifty seven Love that only which happens to THEE and is spun with
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the thread of thy destiny, For what is more suitable. Fifty eight In
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everything which happens, keep before thy eyes those to whom the same things happened,
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and how they were vexed and treated them as strange things, and found
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fault with them. And now where are they nowhere? Why then dost thou
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too choose to act in the same way? And why dost thou not leave
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these agitations which are foreign to nature and those who cause them, and those
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who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the
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right way of making use of the things which happen to THEE? For then
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thou wilt use them well, and they will be a material for THEE to
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work on. Only attend to thyself and resolve to be a good man in
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every act which thou doest, And remember fifty nine look within within is the
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fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig
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sixty The body ought to be compact and to show no irregularity, either in
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motion or attitude. For what the mind shows in the face, by maintaining
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in it the expression of intent, intelligence, and propriety that ought to be
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required also in the whole body. But all these things should be observed without
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affectation. Sixty one. The art of life is more like the wrestler's art
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than the dancers, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and
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firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected. Sixty two. Constantly observe
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who those are, whose approbation thou wishest to have, and what ruling principles
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they possess. For then thou wilt neither blame those who offend involuntarily, nor
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wilt thou want their approbation, if thou lookest to the sources of their opinions
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and appetites. Sixty three. Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily
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deprived of truth. Consequently, in the same way it is deprived of just
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and temperance, and benevolence, and everything of the kind. It is most
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necessary to bear this constantly in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle
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towards all sixty four. In every pain, let this thought be present,
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that there is no dishonor in it, Nor does it make the governing intelligence
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worse, for it does not damage the intelligence, either so far as the
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intelligence is rational, or so far as it is social. Indeed, in
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the case of most pains, let this remark of Epicurus aid thee that pain
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is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bearest in mind that it has limits,
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and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. And remember this too,
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that we do not perceive that many things which are disagreeable to us are
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the same as pain, such as excessive drowsiness, and being scorched by heat,
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and the having no appetite. When then thou art discontented about any of
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these things, say to thyself that thou art yielding to pain. Sixty five
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take care not to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards men. Sixty
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six. How do we know if Telogus was not superior in character to Socrates,
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For it is not enough that Socrates dies a more noble death, and
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disputed more skillfully with the Sophists, and passed the night in the cold with
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more endurance, and that when he was bid to arrest Leon of Salamis,
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he considered it more noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering
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way in the streets. Though as to this fact one may have great doubts
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if it was true. But we ought to inquire what kind of a soul
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it was that Socrates possessed, and if he was able to be content with
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being just towards men and pious towards the gods. Neither idly vexed on account
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of men's villainy, nor yet making himself a slave to any man's ignorance,
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nor receiving as strange anything that fell to his share out of the universal,
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nor enduring it as intolerable, nor allowing his understanding to sympathize with the effects
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of the miserable flesh. Sixty seven. Nature has not so mingled the intelligence
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with the composition of the body as not to have allowed thee the power of
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circumscribing thyself and of bringing under subjection to thyself all that is that is thy
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own. For it is very possible to be a divine man and to be
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recognized as such by no one always bear this in mind. Another thing too,
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that very little, indeed is necessary for living a happy life. And
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because thou hast despaired of becoming a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of nature,
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do not, for this reason renounce the hope of being both free and
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modest, and social and obedient to God. Sixty eight. It is in
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thy power to live free from all compulsion, in the greatest tranquility of mind,
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even if all the world cry out against thee as much as they choose,
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and even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of this needed matter
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which has grown around thee. For what hinders the mind in the midst of
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all this from maintaining itself in tranquility and in a just judgment of all surrounding
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things, and in a ready use of the objects which are presented to it,
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So that the judgment may say to the thing which falls under its observation,
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This thou art in substance, though in men's opinion thou mayst appear to
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be of a different kind, and the use shall say to that which falls
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under the hand, Thou art the thing that I was seeking for to me,
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that which presents itself is always a material for virtue, both rational and
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political, and in a word, for the exercise of art, which belongs
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to man or God. For everything which happens has a relationship either to God
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or man, and is neither new nor difficult to handle, but usual and
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apt matter to work on. Sixty nine. The perfection of moral character consists
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in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither
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violently excited nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite. Seventy The gods who are
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immortal are not vexed, because during so long a time they must tolerate continually
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men as such as they are, and so many of them bad. And
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besides this, they also take care of them in all ways. But thou,
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who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the
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bad? And this too when thou art one of them. Seventy one.
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It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness,
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which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which
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is impossible. Seventy two. Whatever the rational and political faculty finds to be
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neither intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to itself. Seventy
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three. When thou hast done a good act, and another hast received it,
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why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools
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do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act, or
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to obtain a return. Seventy four. No man is tired of receiving what
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is useful, but it is useful to act according to nature. Do not
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then be tired of receiving what is useful by doing it to others? Seventy
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five. The nature of the all moved to make the universe. But now
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either everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or continuity, or even
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the chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe directs its own movement
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are governed by no rational principle. If this is remembered, it will make
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thee more tranquil in many things. Note one, the end of this section
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is unintelligible.