BOOK II
into thy soul, it will be gone—and thou!—and never again shall the chance be thine.
5. Every hour make up thy mind sturdily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with scrupulous and unaffected dignity and love of thy kind and independence and justice; and to give thyself rest from all other impressions. And thou wilt give thyself this, if thou dost execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last,[1] divesting thyself of all aimlessness[2] and all passionate antipathy to the convictions of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love and dissatisfaction with thy allotted share. Thou seest how few are the things, by mastering which a man may lead a life of tranquillity and godlikeness; for the Gods also will ask no more from him who keeps these precepts.
6. Wrong thyself,[3] wrong thyself, O my Soul! But the time for honouring thyself will have gone by; for a man has but one life, and this for thee is well-nigh closed,[4] and yet thou dost not hold thyself in reverence, but settest thy well-being in the souls of others.
7. Do those things draw thee at all away, which befall thee from without? Make then leisure for thyself for the learning of some good thing more, and cease being carried aside hither and thither. But therewith must thou take heed of the other error. For they too are triflers, who by their activities have worn themselves out in life without even having an aim whereto they can direct every impulse, aye and even every thought.
