It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.
In order to please others, we loose our hold on our life's purpose.
Ruin and recovering are both from within.
One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.
And have you not received faculties which will enable you to bear all that happens to you? Have you not received greatness of spirit? Have you not received courage? Have you not received endurance?
No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whosoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties is at the same time delivered from servitude.