BOOK XII
32. How tiny a fragment of the boundless abyss of Time has been appointed to each man![1] For in a moment it is lost in eternity. And how tiny a part of the Universal Substance![2] How tiny of the Universal Soul! And on how tiny a clod of the whole Earth dost thou crawl! Keeping all these things in mind, think nothing of moment save to do what thy nature leads thee to do, and to bear what the Universal Nature brings thee.[3]
33. How does the ruling Reason treat itself?[4] That is the gist of the whole matter. All else, be it in thy choice or not, is but as dust and smoke.[5]
34. Most efficacious in instilling a contempt for death is the fact that those who count pleasure a good and pain an evil have nevertheless contemned it.[6]
35. Not even death can bring terror to him who regards that alone as good which comes in due season,[7] and to whom it is all one whether his acts in obedience to right reason are few or many, and a matter of indifference whether he look upon the world for a longer or a shorter time.[8]
36. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this World-City,[9] what matters it to thee if for five years or a hundred? For under its laws equal treatment is meted out to all. What hardship then is there in being banished from the city, not by a tyrant or an unjust judge but by Nature who settled thee in it?
- ↑ iv. 50; v. 24.
- ↑ Epict. i. 12 § 26: οὐκ οἶσθα ἡλίκον μέρος εἶ πρὸς τὰ ὄντα;
- ↑ iii. 4.
- ↑ v. 11; x. 24.
- ↑ x. 31.
- ↑ e.g. Otho, Petronius, and Epicurus, for whose famous syllogism on death see Aul. Gell. ii. 8; Diog. Laert. Epic. xxxi. § 2, and cp. Bacon's Essay "On Death."
- ↑ x. 20; xii. 23.
- ↑ iii. 7; xii. 36.
- ↑ ii. 16; iii. 11; iv. 4.
