Nothing
is more wretched than a man who traverses everything in a round, and
pries into the things beneath the earth, as the poet says, and seeks
by conjecture what is in the minds of his neighbours, without
perceiving that it is sufficient to attend to the daemon within him,
and to reverence it sincerely. And reverence of the daemon consists
in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness, and
dissatisfaction with what comes from gods and men. For the things
from the gods merit veneration for their excellence; and the things
from men should be dear to us by reason of kinship; and sometimes
even, in a manner, they move our pity by reason of men's ignorance of
good and bad; this defect being not less than that which deprives us
of the power of distinguishing things that are white and black.
(podcast episode) (original Greek)
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