ow it is
true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my
affects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally
and changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its
activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a
furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps
us on this road.

21. Reverence that which is best in the universe; and this is that which
makes use of all things and directs all things. And in like manner also
reverence that which is best in thyself; and this is of the same kind as
that. For in thyself also, that which makes use of everything else is
this, and thy life is directed by this.

22. That which does no harm to the state, does no harm to the citizen.
In the case of every appearance of harm apply this rule: if the state
is not harmed by this, neither am I harmed. But if the state is harmed,
thou must not be angry with him who does harm to the state. Show him
where his error is.

23. Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear,
both the things which are and the things which are produced. For
substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of
things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite
varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider
this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the
future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is
puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself
miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time.

24. Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small
portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible
interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by
destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.

25. Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own
disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal nature now
wills me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me to do.

26. Let the part of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by
the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or of pain; and let it
not unite with them, but let it circumscribe itself and limit those
affects to their parts. But when these affects rise up to the mind by
virtue of that other sympathy that naturally exists in a body which is
all one, then thou must not stri