Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter that he may be old, being no longer ignorant of the things which in youth make for happiness. It is necessary, then, to meditate on the things which make for happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

The things which without ceasing I have declared unto you, do them and exercise yourself in them, holding them to be the elements of right life. First of all, believe that a god is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and do not ascribe to him anything foreign to his immortality or repugnant to his blessedness, but believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For such a god exists, since the belief in him is innate in all men; but he is not such as many imagine him to be. For men do not hold to their own beliefs about him. And it is not the man who denies the gods of the multitude who is impious, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them. For the statements of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hands of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like unto themselves, but reject all that are unlike them.

Accustom yourself to think that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil lies in sensation, and death is the cessation of sensation. Hence the right knowledge that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. Therefore, the man speaks idly who says he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in the prospect. For that which gives no trouble when it comes is but an empty pain in anticipation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or the dead, for with the living it is not, and the dead exist no longer.

But the multitude of men shun death as the greatest of evils, and yet choose the worst penalties of life — imprisonment and poverty and disgrace — to avoid the fear of death. And wise men do not grieve for the shortness of life, for no one is either too young or too old to attain wisdom. Nor should one say that it is better not to have been born, or that, having been born, it is best to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if such a view be held, why not depart from life forthwith? It were easy, if one's belief be sincere. But if he is only mocking, it is idle to give ear to him.

Remember that the future is not wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as wholly unlikely. We must consider that of desires some are natural and some are vain; and of the natural some are necessary and some are merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary to happiness, some to the health of the body, and some to life itself. A correct understanding of these things teaches us to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the tranquility of the soul, since this is the goal of a blessed life. For we act always to avoid pain and fear. Whenever this is done successfully, we are content.

To secure this end, we must examine the causes of all our sensations, and understand the principles of choice and avoidance, so that we may act with a view to the health of the body and the peace of the mind, for this is the end of a life of bliss. For it is to obtain this end that we do everything — to be free from pain and fear. When once we attain this, all the tempest of the soul is laid, the creature having no longer to go in search of something that is lacking or to seek something else by which the good of the soul and the body may be achieved. For we need pleasure only when we are pained by the absence of it, and when we are not pained we no longer need pleasure.

And this is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of a happy life. For we recognize this as our first and natural good. It is from this that we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to this we return, as we judge every good by the standard of feeling. And because this is the first and native good, for this reason we do not choose every pleasure, but often pass over many pleasures, when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pain better than pleasure, when the result is that we enjoy a greater pleasure after enduring a long pain. Every pleasure, therefore, because it is by nature a good, is also to be chosen; but not all pleasures are always to be chosen. In like manner every pain is an evil, but not all pains are to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these things are to be judged.

Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. And we regard self-sufficiency as a great good, not that we may in every case be satisfied with little, but that, if we do not have much, we may be satisfied with little. For we have a greater enjoyment in simple things when we are not dependent upon them, than in the greatest things when we feel them to be a necessity. The wise man, therefore, does not regard wealth as a good, for it is better to be free from pain and fear than to have abundance. The wise man looks to the health of the body and the soul, not to mere luxuries.

Practice these and the like precepts day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded friend, and never shall you be disturbed either waking or sleeping, and you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is in no respect like a mortal being.