On Tranquillity of Mind (18)

For it is the fear of death, not the desire for life, which makes the fool dependent on his body, clinging to it as Odysseus[*] did to the fig-tree through fear of Charybdis below,

Where breezes let him neither stay nor sail,[*]

so that he is displeased at this and fearful of that. But he who understands somehow or other the nature of the soul and reflects that the change it undergoes at death will be for the better, or at least not for the worse, has no small provision to secure tranquillity of mind for facing life - fearlessness towards death. For he who can live pleasantly when the agreeable and congenial part of life is in the ascendant, but when alien and unnatural principles prevail, can depart fearlessly, saying,

The god himself shall free me, when I will,[*]

what can we imagine might befall such a man as this that would vex or trouble or disturb him? For he[*] who said, I have anticipated you, Fortune, and taken from you every entry whereby you might get at me, encouraged himself, not with bolts or keys or battlements, but by precepts and reasoning in which everyone who desires may share. And one must not despair or disbelieve any of these arguments, but should admire and emulate them and, being filled with their inspiration, make trial of oneself and observe oneself in smaller matters with a view to the greater, not avoiding or rejecting from the soul the care of these things, nor taking refuge in the remark, Perhaps nothing will be more difficult than this. For languor and flabby softness are implanted by that self-indulgence of the soul which ever occupies itself with the easiest way, and retreats from the undesirable to what is most pleasant. But the soul which endeavours, by study and the severe application of its powers of reasoning, to form an idea of what sickness, suffering, and exile really are will find much that is false and empty and corrupt in what appears to be difficult and fearful, as the reason shows in each particular.[*]