with what comes from gods and men. For the things from the gods merit
veneration for their excellence; and the things from men should be dear
to us by reason of kinship; and sometimes even, in a manner, they move
our pity by reason of men's ignorance of good and bad; this defect being
not less than that which deprives us of the power of distinguishing
things that are white and black.

14. Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years, and as
many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other
life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he
now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. For the
present is the same to all, though that which perishes is not the same;
and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot
lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any
one take this from him? These two things then thou must bear in mind; the
one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a
circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same
things during a hundred years, or two hundred, or an infinite time; and
the second, that the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just
the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be
deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and
that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.

15. Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus
is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man
receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

16. The soul of man does violence to itself, first of all, when it
becomes an abscess, and, as it were, a tumor on the universe, so far as
it can. For to be vexed at anything which happens is a separation of