1.Say to thyself at daybreak:I shall come across the busy-body,the thankless,the bully,the treacherous,the envious,the unneighbourly.A ll this has befallen them because they know not good from evil.But I,i n that I have comprehended the nature of the Good that it is beautiful,and the nature of Evil that it is ugly,and the nature of the wrong-doer himself that it is akin to me,not as partaker of the same blood and see d but of intelligence and a morsel of the Divine,can neither be injured by any of them-for no one can involve me in what is debasing-nor can I be wroth with my kinsman and hate him.For we have come into being for c o-operation,as have the feet,the hands,the eyelids,the rows of upper and lower teeth.Therefore to thwart one another is against Nature;and we do thwart one another by shewing resentment and aversion.
2.This that I am,whatever it be,is mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason.Away with thy books!Be no longer drawn aside by them:it is not allowed.But as one already dying disdain the flesh:it is naught but gore and bones and a network compact of nerves and veins a nd arteries.Look at the breath too,what sort of thing it is;air:and not even that always the same,but every minute belched forth and again gulped down.Then,thirdly,there is the ruling Reason.Put thy thought thus:thou art an old man;let this be a thrall no longer,no more a pup pet pulled aside by every selfish impulse;nor let it grumble any longer at what is allotted to it in the present or dread it in the future.
3.Full of Providence are the works of the Gods,nor are Fortune's w orks independent of Nature or of the woven texture and interlacement of all that is under the control of Providence.Thence are all things deriv ed;but Necessity too plays its part and the Welfare of the whole Univer se of which thou art a portion.But good for every part of Nature is tha t which the Nature of the Whole brings about,and which goes to preserve it.Now it is the changes not only of the elements but of the things com pounded of them that preserve the Universe.Let these reflections suffic e thee,if thou hold them as principles.But away with thy thirst for bo oks,that thou mayest die not murmuring but with a good grace,truly and from thy heart grateful to the Gods.