Let No Man Think That He Is

Is Freedom Anything Else Than The Power Of Living As We Choose? Nothing Else. Tell Me Then, You Men, Do You Wish To Live In Error? We Do Not. No One Who Lives In Error Is Free. Do You Wish To Live In Fear? Do You Wish To Live In Sorrow? Do You Wish To Live In Tension? By No Means. No One Who Is In A State Of Fear Or Sorrow Or Tension Is Free, But Whoever Is Delivered From Sorrows Or Fears Or Anxieties, He Is At The Same Time Also Delivered From Servitude.

Why, Do You Not Know, Then, That The Origin Of All Human Evils, And Of Baseness, And Cowardice, Is Not Death, But Rather The Fear Of Death?

In A Word, Neither Death, Nor Exile, Nor Pain, Nor Anything Of This Kind Is The Real Cause Of Our Doing Or Not Doing Any Action, But Our Inward Opinions And Principles.

Men Are Disturbed Not By The Things That Happen, But By Their Opinion Of The Things That Happen.

No Living Being Is Held By Anything So Strongly As By Its Own Needs. Whatever Therefore Appears A Hindrance To These, Be It Brother, Or Father, Or Child, Or Mistress, Or Friend, Is Hated, Abhorred, Execrated.