I myself,"

coming from within on one's own misdeeds, intensifies one's bitterness
by the shame felt. And so neither costly house, nor quantity of gold,
nor pride of race, nor weighty office, nor grace of language, nor
eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life, as a soul pure from
evil acts and desires, having an imperturbable and undefiled character
as the source of its life; whence good actions flow, producing an
enthusiastic and cheerful energy accompanied by loftiness of thought,
and a memory sweeter and more lasting than that hope which Pindar says
is the support of old age. Censers do not, as Carneades said, after they
are emptied, long retain their sweet smell; but in the mind of the wise
man good actions always leave a fresh and fragrant memory, by which joy
is watered and flourishes, and despises those who wail over life and
abuse it as a region of ills, or as a place of exile for souls in this
world.

Sec. XX. I am very taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon,
who was dressing with much display for a feast, "Does not a good man
consider every day a feast?" And a very great feast too, if we live
soberly. For the world is a most holy and divine temple, into which man
is introduced at his birth, not to behold motionless images made by
hands, but those things (to use the language of Plato) which the divine
mind has exhibited as the visible representations of invisible things,
having innate in them the principle of life and motion, as the sun moon
and stars, and rivers ever flowing with fresh water, and the earth
affording maintenance to plants and animals. Seeing then that life is
the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full
of ease of mind and joy; not as most people wait for the festivals of
Cronos[761] and Dionysus and the Panathenaea and other similar days, that
they may joy and refresh themselves with bought laughter, paying actors
and dancers for the same. On such occasions indeed we sit silently and
decorously, for no one wails when he is initiated, or groans when he
beholds the Pythian games, or when he is drinking at the festival of
Cronos:[761] but men shame the festivals which the deity supplies us
with and initiates us in, passing most of their time in lamentation and
heaviness of heart and distressing anxiety. And though men delight in
the pleasing notes of musical instruments, and in the songs of birds,
and behold with joy the animals playing and