9781945186240

the heat and fire from theirs—since nothing comes from nothing, or returns
to it.
So thought must derive from somewhere else as well.
5. Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and
recombine.
Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.
6. That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig
tree for secreting juice. (Anyway, before very long you’ll both be dead—
dead and soon forgotten.)
7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.
Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.
8. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot
harm you—inside or out.
9. It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it.
10. That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.
Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it
out with scales.
Keep looking closely like that, and embody it in your actions: goodness
—what defines a good person.
Keep to it in everything you do.
11. Not what your enemy sees and hopes that you will, but what’s really
there.
12. Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do only what
the logos of authority and law directs, with the good of human beings in
mind; (ii) to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or
convert you to his. But your conversion should always rest on a conviction
that it’s right, or benefits others—nothing else. Not because it’s more
appealing or more popular.
13. You have a mind?