"7. Never value anything as profitably that compels you to break your promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls or curtains; for he who has preferred to everything else his own intelligence and daimon [soul] and worship of its existence, acts no tragic part, does not groan, will not need either solitude or much company; and, what is chief of all, he will live without either pursuing or flying from death; but whether for a longer time or a shorter time he shall have the soul encased in the body he cares not: for even if he must depart immediately, he will go as readily as if he were going to do anything else that could be done with decency and order; taking care of this only all through life, that his thoughts abide with the concerns of an intelligent animal and a member of a civil community."

"12. If you apply yourself to the task before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activities according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will live happily. And there is no man who is able to prevent this."

~ Selections from Book III of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations