Keep this thought a the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night – there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of our sphere of choice , regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune.
Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.39
Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good
and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.
Saint Thomas More (1478-1535)
Continue reading “The Line Separating Good And Evil”Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.
Continue reading “Life, Death, and Philosophy”The time of a man’s life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful; to be brief, as a stream so are all things belonging to the body; as a dream, or as a smoke, so are all that belong unto the soul. Our life is a warfare, and a mere pilgrimage. Fame after life is no better than oblivion. What is it then that will adhere and follow?
Continue reading “Control and Choice”The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…
Continue reading “On The Nature of Wrongdoers”BEGIN the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.
Continue reading “On The Shortness of Life”Men are frivolous with the most valuable thing in the world, blind to its value because it is intangible, because it can not be seen, and for this reason it is considered a very cheap thing – even of almost no value at all.
…true wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in moulding our conduct according to her laws and model. A happy life, therefore, is one which is in accordance with its own nature,…
Continue reading “Of a Happy Life”At first it is not possible to describe anything beyond a wish and desire.
That is how it begins, making a film, writing a book, paining a picture, generally creating something.
You have wish.
