April 30

WHEN a person inquired, how any one might eat acceptably to the gods: If he eats with justice, says Epictetus, and gratitude, and fairly and temperately and decently, must he not also eat acceptably to the gods? And when you call for hot water, and your servant doth not hear you, or, if he doth, brings it only warm; or perhaps is not to be found at home; then not to be angry, or burst with passion, is not this acceptable to the gods?

EPICTETUS. DISCOURSES. Book i. §51. ¶1.

IN the mind that is once truly disciplined and purged, thou canst not find anything, either foul or impure, or as it were festered: nothing that is either servile, or affected: no partial tie; no malicious averseness; nothing obnoxious; nothing concealed. The life of such an one. Death can never surprise as imperfect; as of an Actor, that should die before he had ended, or the play itself were at an end, a man might speak.

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book iii. 9.