serious pursuit, I cannot imagine. But on the contrary it is a man’s duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only: * the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe; * and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and daemon: for there is no man who will compel me
About what am I now employing my own soul? On every occasion I must ask myself this question, and inquire, what have I now in this part of me which they call the ruling principle? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or of a young man, or of a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, or of a domestic animal, or of a wild beast?