1You are doing an excellent thing and one wholesome for you if, as you write, you persevere in going towards a sound mind, which it is foolish to pray for when you can obtain it from yourself. 1We need not lift our hands to heaven, nor beg the temple-keeper to let us up to the ear of the statue, as if we could be heard better that way; 1God is near you, he is with you, he is within. 2I say this, Lucilius: a holy spirit dwells within us, the observer and guardian of our bad deeds and our good. 2As he has been treated by us, so he himself treats us.
2No man, indeed, is good without God; 2or can anyone rise above fortune unless helped by him? 2He gives counsels noble and upright. 2In each good man 'which god it is is uncertain, but a god dwells there.' 3If you come upon a grove thick with ancient trees that have risen beyond the usual height, shutting out the sight of the sky by the screen of branches sheltering one another, the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the place, and your wonder at a shade so dense and unbroken in the open will give you belief in a divine presence. 3If some cave, its rocks eaten deep away, holds a mountain suspended over it, not made by hand but hollowed out to such a spaciousness by natural causes, it will strike your mind with a certain inkling of the sacred.
3We venerate the sources of great rivers; 3the sudden bursting forth of a vast stream from a hidden place has altars; 3springs of hot water are worshipped, and certain pools have been made sacred by either their darkness or their immense depth. 4If you see a man undaunted by dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, calm in the midst of storms, viewing men from a higher place and the gods from an equal one, will not reverence for him steal over you? 4Will you not say: 'This thing is greater and loftier than could be believed to resemble this paltry body in which it dwells? 4A divine power has come down into that man.' 5A mind outstanding, controlled, passing over all things as lesser, laughing at whatever we fear and pray for, is stirred by a heavenly power.
5So great a thing cannot stand without the support of a deity. 5Therefore in the greater part of itself it is there, whence it came down. 5Just as the rays of the sun do indeed touch the earth, but are there whence they are sent; 5so a great and holy mind, sent down for this purpose, that we might know divine things more closely, does indeed dwell among us, but clings to its origin; 5on that it depends, towards that it looks and strives; it takes part in our affairs as a better being. 6What, then, is this mind? 6One that shines with no good but its own; 6for what is more foolish than to praise in a man what belongs to another?
6What is more mad than one who admires things which can be transferred at once to someone else? 6Golden bridles do not make a horse better. 6A lion with a gilded mane, while he is being handled and, worn out, forced to put up with the decoration, is sent into the arena in one way, an untamed one, his spirit unbroken, in quite another; 6this one, of course, fierce in his charge, as nature wished him to be, handsome in his shagginess, whose beauty is this, that he cannot be looked on without fear, is preferred to that languid, gilded one. 7No one ought to glory except in what is his own.
7We praise a vine if it loads its shoots with fruit, if by the weight of what it has borne it itself drags its props down to the ground; 7would anyone prefer to this vine one from which golden grapes and golden leaves hang? 7The proper virtue in a vine is fruitfulness; in a man too what must be praised is what is his own. 7He has a handsome household of slaves and a beautiful house, he sows much, he lends much at interest; 7none of these things is in him, but around him. 8Praise in him what can neither be snatched away nor given, what is proper to man.
8You ask what it is? 8The mind, and reason perfected in the mind. 8For man is a rational animal. 8His good, therefore, is made complete if he has fulfilled that for which he is born. 9And what is it that this reason demands of him? 9The easiest thing of all: to live according to his own nature. 9But the madness common to all makes this difficult; 9we push one another into vices. 9And how can those be called back to health whom no one holds back and the crowd drives on? 9Farewell.