In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases.
Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; blessings and curses are abolished.
The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes…. The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.
We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.” “True happiness is … to enjoy the present” “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.
