He who reasons thus (like Epicurus), does not hear the voices of supplicants and the prayers offered everywhere, in public and private, with hands outstretched toward heaven. This could not be, nor is it possible that all men should have willingly consented to the folly of addressing deaf divinities and powerless gods, if they had not recognized their benefactions, sometimes given spontaneously, sometimes in answer to prayer, always great, timely, averting by their intervention impending disasters. FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. It is easy to form the mind while it is still tender; but it is difficult to root out those vices that have grown up with it. It is a great thing to know when to speak and when to be silent. The vices of others we have before our eyes; our own, behind our backs. Use your ears oftener than your tongue. Nothing is more out of place in him who is inflicting punishment than anger. It is not the issue of a thing that ought to be taken into account, but the purpose. Every crime is committed before the deed is done. To cupidity nothing is enough; to nature even a little is enough. Vice takes possession of us unconsciously; virtue is difficult to find, and we need a guide and teacher. Vices are learned without a teacher. Stars shall impinge upon stars and all matter that now delights us with its beautiful order shall burn in one huge conflagration. All that is best can neither be given to men nor taken from them. There are two things, the most precious of all, that attend us whithersoever we turn our steps: common nature and personal virtue. These things are so, believe me, because they were so willed by the creator of the universe, whether it is that God who controls everything, or incorporeal reason, the artificer of great works, or the divine spirit that pervades equally the greatest and the smallest things. If the dead have any feeling, the soul of my brother, now set free from a long imprisonment, is at length in the full enjoyment of his freedom and his majority; he beholds with delight the nature of things and looks down upon human affairs from his high abode; but things divine, the causes of which he so long sought out in vain, he now beholds at close range. Why then do I pine away in sorrow for him who is either blessed or not all? To mourn for one who is in bliss is envy; for one who is not, folly. Borne on high, he soars among beatified spirits, and a sanctified company welcomes him—the Scipios, the Catos, released by the beneficence of death. There thy father devotes himself to his grandson, resplendent in the new light even though in that place all are known to each. He explains to him the motions of the stars around him; not from conjectures, but, versed in the knowledge of all things, he gladly inducts him into the arcana of nature. If you will believe those who have looked more deeply into the truth, our whole life is a punishment.