XCV
To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your
desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their
hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and
figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again,
and then they fall to tears.--"Let go a few of them, and then you
can draw out the rest!"--You, too, let your desire go! covet not many
things, and you will obtain.
XCVI
Pittacus wronged by one whom he had it in his power to punish, let
him go free, saying, Forgiveness is better than revenge. The one shows
native gentleness, the other savagery.
XCVII
"My brother ought not to have treated me thus."
True: but he must see to that. However he may treat me, I must deal
rightly by him. This is what lies with me, what none can hinder.
XCVIII
Nevertheless a man should also be prepared to be sufficient unto
himself--to dwell with himself alone, even as God dwells with Himself
alone, shares His repose with none, and considers the nature of His own
administration, intent upon such thoughts as are meet unto Himself. So
should we also be able to converse with ourselves, to need none else
beside, to sigh for no distraction, to bend our thoughts upon the Divine
Administration, and how we stand related to all else; to observe how
human accidents touched us of old, and how they touch us now; what
things they are that still have power to hurt us, and how they may
be cured or removed; to perfect what needs perfecting as Reason would
direct.
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