WHEN children cry if their nurse happens
to be absent for a little while, give them a
cake, and they forget their grief. Shall we compare
you to these children, then?
No, indeed. For I do not desire to be pacified by a cake, but by right principles. And what are they?
Such as a man ought to study all day long, so as not to be attached to what doth not belong to him; neither to a friend, to a place, an academy, nor even to his own body, but to remember the law and to have that constantly before his eyes. And what is the divine law? To preserve inviolate what is properly our own, not to claim what belongs to others; to use what is given us, and not desire what is not given us; and, when anything is taken away, to restore it readily, and to be thankful for the time you have been permitted the use of it, and not cry after it, like a child for its nurse and its mamma.
No, indeed. For I do not desire to be pacified by a cake, but by right principles. And what are they?
Such as a man ought to study all day long, so as not to be attached to what doth not belong to him; neither to a friend, to a place, an academy, nor even to his own body, but to remember the law and to have that constantly before his eyes. And what is the divine law? To preserve inviolate what is properly our own, not to claim what belongs to others; to use what is given us, and not desire what is not given us; and, when anything is taken away, to restore it readily, and to be thankful for the time you have been permitted the use of it, and not cry after it, like a child for its nurse and its mamma.
EPICTETUS. DISCOURSES. Book ii. §16. ¶3.
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