A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong--acting the part of a good man or of a bad. For wherever a man's place is, whether the place he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. Let every man be of good cheer about his soul, who has ruled his body and followed knowledge and goodness in this life; for if death be a journey to another place and there all the dead are, what good can be greater than this? Be of good cheer about death and know this of a truth that no evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death. To want as little as possible is to make the nearest approach to the Deity. Knowledge is the food of the soul. We ought not to retaliate and render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. Neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. Act toward others as you would have others act toward you. Forgive your enemies, render good for evil, and kiss even the hand that is upraised to smite. Grant me to be beautiful in soul and may all I possess of outward things be at harmony with those within. Teach me to think wisdom the only riches. If thou wouldst know what is the wisdom of the gods and what their love is, render thyself deserving the communication of some of those divine secrets, which may not be penetrated by man and which are imparted to those alone who consult, adore, and obey the Deity. Sokrates, speaking of his life-work, says: In this research and scrutiny I have been long engaged. I interrogate every man of reputation. I prove him to be defective in wisdom but I can not prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the mission imposed upon me, I have established the veracity of the god (Apollo), who meant to pronounce that human wisdom is of little reach and worth; and that he who like Sokrates feels most convinced of his own worthlessness as to wisdom is really the wisest of men, for the truth is, O men of Athens, the Deity only is wise. My service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant poverty and neglect of political estimation, but has brought upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and exposed, while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man because they give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my exposure of others turns.