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And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me…
And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish’d breasts of melons.
And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
Life is a dream. Death is an awakening.
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables — meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
Like madness is the glory of this life.
Till now you have gone on and fill’d the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now myself and such
As slept with our traversed arms, and breathed
Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
Cries of itself, “No more.”
But tell me true —
For I must ever doubt, though ne’er so sure —
Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
If not a usuring kindness, and, as rich men deal gifts,
Expecting in return twenty for one?
What an alteration of honour
Has desperate want made!
What viler thing upon the earth than friends
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
How rarely does it meet with this time’s guise,
When man was wish’d to love his enemies!
It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Cast away your opinion and you are saved. Who hinders you from casting it away?
Inquire of yourself as soon as you awaken from sleep whether it will make any difference to you, if another does or does not do what is just and right. It will make no difference.
When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it.
Today I have escaped from all trouble, or rather, I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside me, but within, and in my opinions.
As physicians always have their instruments ready for cases which suddenly require their skill, so do you have principles ready for insight into both divine and human affairs, and for doing everything, even the smallest, with an awareness of the bond which unites the divine and the human. For you will not do anything well which pertains to man without also doing well in the divine, and vice versa.
There is no one who hinders you from always doing and saying the things which are according to the nature of which you are a part.
Regarding that which happens in harmony with nature, we ought to blame neither gods, for they do nothing wrong either voluntarily or involuntarily, nor men, for they do nothing wrong except unconsciously. Consequently, we should blame no one.
It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul, for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements.
The ruling faculty does not disturb itself, I mean, it does not frighten itself or cause itself pain… The guiding principle in itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself, and therefore it is free.