- for he who has preferred to everything intelligence and daemon and the worship of its excellence, acts no tragic part, does not groan, will not need either solitude or much company; * and, what is chief of all, he will live without either pursuing or flying from death; * but whether for a longer or a shorter time he shall have the soul enclosed in the body, he cares not at all: > for even if he must depart immediately, he will go as readily as if he were going to do anything else which can be done with decency and order; taking care of this only all through life, that his thoughts turn not away from anything which belongs to an intelligent animal and a member
In the mind of one who is chastened and purified thou wilt find no corrupt matter, nor impurity, nor any sore skinned over.
Nor is his life incomplete when fate overtakes him, as one may say of an actor who leaves the stage before ending and finishing the play.
Besides, there is in him nothing servile, nor affected, nor too closely bound to other things, nor yet detached from other things, nothing worthy of blame, nothing which seeks a hiding-place.
Reverence the faculty which produces opinion. On this faculty it entirely depends whether there shall exist in thy ruling part any opinion inconsistent with nature and the constitution of the rational animal. And this faculty promises freedom from hasty judgement, and friendship towards men, and obedience to the gods.
Throwing away then all things, hold to these only which are few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.