(33) He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with energy has a (firm) will. He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long; he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity.

(3) "Up there above us in the life serene," I answered him, "I lost me in a valley, Or ever yet my age had been completed. But yestermorn I turned my back upon it; This one appeared to me, returning thither, And homeward leadeth me along this road." And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow, Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port, If well I judged in the life beautiful. And if I had not died so prematurely, Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee, I would have given thee comfort in the work. But that ungrateful and malignant people, Which of old time from Fesole descended, And smacks still of the mountain and the granite, Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe; And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit. Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind; A people avaricious, envious, proud; Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee. Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee, One party and the other shall be hungry For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

(12) And if, too, the end of the wise man is contemplation, that of those who are still philosophers aims at it, but never attains it, unless by the process of learning it receives the prophetic utterance which has been made known, by which it grasps both the present, the future, and the past - how they are, were, and shall be.

(7) Endeavour to be great in the estimation of divinity, but among men avoid envy.

The wise man whose estimation with men was but small while he was living, will be renowned when he is dead.

(17) 'The Person not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, is always settled in the heart of men. Let a man draw that Self forth from his body with steadiness, as one draws the pith from a reed. Let him know that Self as the Bright, as the Immortal; yes, as the Bright, as the Immortal.'

(613) but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. True. And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true? Certainly, he said, what you say is true.

(13) For a foolish man usually puts on folly like a robe, and like a garment of sorrow, he puts on shame. And he crowns himself with ignorance, and takes his seat upon a throne of nescience. For while he is without reason, he leads only himself astray, for he is guided by ignorance. And he goes the ways of the desire of every passion. He swims in the desires of life and has sunk. To be sure, he thinks that he finds profit when he does all the things which are without profit. The wretched man who goes through all these things will die, because he does not have the mind, the helmsman. But he is like a ship which the wind tosses to and fro, and like a loose horse which has no rider. For this (man) needed the rider, which is reason. For the wretched one went astray because he did not want advice. He was thrown to and fro by these three misfortunes: he acquired death as a father, ignorance as a mother, and evil counsels - he acquired them as friends and brothers. Therefore, foolish one, you should mourn for yourself.

(28) Again, Epicharmas having said: "As destined Ion to live, and yet not long, Think of thyself."- Euripides writes: "Why? seeing the wealth we have uncertain is, Why don't we live as free from care, as pleasant As we may?" Similarly also, the comic poet Diphilus having said: "The life of men is prone to change,"- Posidippus says: "No man of mortal mould his life has passed From suffering free. Nor to the end again Has continued prosperous."

(391) No man who down upon the earth and upon tables is wise.

(28) 'What mortal, slowly decaying here below, and knowing, after having approached them, the freedom from decay enjoyed by the immortals, would delight in a long life, after he has pondered on the pleasures which arise from beauty and love?'

(5) Yet would I not thy neighbours thou shouldst envy, Because thy life into the future reaches Beyond the punishment of their perfidies." When by its silence showed that sainted soul That it had finished putting in the woof Into that web which I had given it warped, Began I, even as he who yearneth after, Being in doubt, some counsel from a person Who seeth, and uprightly wills, and loves: "Well see I, father mine, how spurreth on The time towards me such a blow to deal me As heaviest is to him who most gives way. Therefore with foresight it is well I arm me, That, if the dearest place be taken from me, I may not lose the others by my songs. Down through the world of infinite bitterness, And o'er the mountain, from whose beauteous summit The eyes of my own Lady lifted me, And afterward through heaven from light to light, I have learned that which, if I tell again, Will be a savour of strong herbs to many. And if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear lest I may lose my life with those Who will hereafter call this time the olden."

(1) To neglect things of the smallest consequence, is not the least thing in human life.

The wise man, and the despiser of wealth, resembles God.

(9) So then he undergoes toils, and trials, and affections, not as those among the philosophers who are endowed with manliness, in the hope of present troubles ceasing, and of sharing again in what is pleasant; but knowledge has inspired him with the firmest persuasion of receiving the hopes of the future.

(10) But, it may be said, length of time produces an abundance of good actions missed by the man whose attainment of the happy state is recent- if indeed we can think at all of a state of happiness where good actions have been few.

Now to make multiplicity, whether in time or in action, essential to Happiness is to put it together by combining non-existents, represented by the past, with some one thing that actually is. This consideration it was that led us at the very beginning to place Happiness in the actually existent and on that basis to launch our enquiry as to whether the higher degree was determined by the longer time. It might be thought that the Happiness of longer date must surpass the shorter by virtue of the greater number of acts it included.

But, to begin with, men quite outside of the active life may attain the state of felicity, and not in a less but in a greater degree than men of affairs.

Secondly, the good does not derive from the act itself but from the inner disposition which prompts the noble conduct: the wise and good man in his very action harvests the good not by what he does but by what he is.

A wicked man no less than a Sage may save the country, and the good of the act is for all alike, no matter whose was the saving hand. The contentment of the Sage does not hang upon such actions and events: it is his own inner habit that creates at once his felicity and whatever pleasure may accompany it.

To put Happiness in actions is to put it in things that are outside virtue and outside the Soul; for the Soul's expression is not in action but in wisdom, in a contemplative operation within itself; and this, this alone, is Happiness.

(7) 'He (the Self) of whom many are not even able to hear, whom many, even when they hear of him, do not comprehend; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able to teach him (the Self); wonderful is he who comprehends him, when taught by an able teacher.'

(10) Accordingly, both the old man, the young, and the servant will live faithfully, and if need be die; which will be to be made alive by death. So we know that both children, and women, and servants have often, against their fathers', and masters', and husbands' will, reached the highest degree of excellence.

(45) Who thinks his great achievements poor Shall find his vigour long endure. Of greatest fulness, deemed a void, Exhaustion ne'er shall stem the tide. Do thou what's straight still crooked deem; Thy greatest art still stupid seem, And eloquence a stammering scream. Constant action overcomes cold; being still overcomes heat. Purity and stillness give the correct law to all under heaven.

(498) me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near. Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue—such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them—do you think that they ever did? No indeed. No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak. And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason

(69) Where is a man (who is) wise or powerful in intelligence, or a man whose devices are many because he knows wisdom? Let him speak wisdom; let him utter great boasting! For every man has become a fool and has spoken out of his (own) knowledge. For he (Christ) confounded the counsels of guileful people, and he prevailed over those wise in their own understanding.

(5) 'Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round, staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind.'