Nothing Is Miserable Unless You Think It

In Other Living Creatures The Ignorance Of Themselves Is Nature, But In Men It Is A Vice.

Wretched Men Cringe Before Tyrants Who Have No Power, The Victims Of Their Trivial Hopes And Fears. They Do Not Realise That Anger Is Hopeless, Fear Is Pointless And Desire All A Delusion. He Whose Heart Is Fickle Is Not His Own Master, Has Thrown Away His Shield, Deserted His Post, And He Forges The Links Of The Chain That Holds Him.

I Who Once Wrote Songs With Keen Delight Am Now By Sorrow Driven To Take Up Melancholy Measures. Wounded Muses Tell Me What I Must Write, And Elegiac Verses Bathe My Face With Real Tears. Not Even Terror Could Drive From Me These Faithful Companions Of My Long Journey. Poetry, Which Was Once The Glory Of My Happy And Flourishing Youth, Is Still My Comfort In This Misery Of My Old Age.

As Far As Possible, Join Faith To Reason.

Good Men Seek It By The Natural Means Of The Virtues; Evil Men, However, Try To Achieve The Same Goal By A Variety Of Concupiscences, And That Is Surely An Unnatural Way Of Seeking The Good. Don't You Agree?