Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.

Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements.

Give your heart to the trade you have learnt, and draw refreshment from it. Let the rest of your days be spent as one who has whole-heartedly committed his all to the gods and is thenceforth no man's master or slave.

Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.

"Sweep me up and send me where you please." For there I will retain my spirit, tranquil and content, as long as it can feel and act in harmony with its own nature. Is a change of place enough reason for my soul to become unhappy and worn, for me to become depressed, humbled, cowering, and afraid? Can you discover any reasons for this?

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.