“Let each one say to himself, whenever he is provoked, ‘What right have I to punish with whips or fetters a slave who has offended me by voice or manner? Who am I, whose ears it is such a monstrous crime to offend? Many grant pardon to their enemies; shall I not pardon simply idle, negligent, or garrulous slaves?’ Tender years should shield childhood--their sex, women--individual liberty, a stranger--the common roof, a domestic. Does he offend now for the first time? Let us think how often he may have pleased us.”--(_De Irâ_ iii., passim.) As to the conduct of life:-- “We ought so to live, as though in the sight of all men. We ought so to employ our thoughts, as though someone were able to inspect our inmost soul--and there is one able. For what advantages it that a thing is hidden from men; nothing is hidden from God. (_Ep._ 83.) ... Would you propitiate heaven? Be good. He worships the gods, who imitates [the higher ideal of] them. How do we act? What principles do we lay down? That we are to refrain from human bloodshed? Is it a great matter to refrain from injuring him to whom you are bound to do good? The whole of human and divine teaching is summed up in this one principle--we are all members of one mighty body. Nature has made us of one kin (_cognatos_), since she has produced us from the same elements and will resolve us into the same elements. She has implanted in us love one for another, and made us for living together in society. She has laid down the laws of right and justice, by which ordinance it is more wretched to injure than to be injured; and by her ordering, our hands are given us to help each the other.... Let us ask what things _are_, not what they _are called_. Let us value each thing on its own merits, without thought of the world’s opinion. Let us love temperance; let us, before all things, cherish justice.... Our actions will not be right unless the will is first right, for from that proceeds the act.” Again:-- “The will will not be right unless the _habits_ of mind are right, for from these results the will. The habits of thought, however, will not be at the best unless they shall have been based upon _the laws of the whole of life_; unless they shall have tried all things by the test of truth.”--(_Ep._ xcv.) Excellent is his advice on the choice of books and of reading:--