Sublime

56

Remember that you should behave in life as you do at a banquet. Something is being passed around and arrives in front of you: reach out your hand and take your share politely. It passes: don’t try to hold it back. It has yet to reach you: don’t project your desire towards it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. So act likewise with regard to

Speech is easy, action hard. Actions are the stuff of life, words its frippery. Eminent deeds endure, striking words pass away. Actions are the fruit of thought; if this is wise, they are effective.

He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.

Civilization, life itself, is something learned and invented. Bear this truth well in mind: Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes. After several years of peace men forget it all too easily. They come to believe that culture is innate, that it is identical with nature. But savagery is always lurking two steps away, and it regains a foothold as

Slow and steady wins the race, but an ego will end it.