Letter 23 — On the True Joy Which Comes from Philosophy (§7)

“Do you ask me what this real good is, and whence it derives? I will tell you: it comes from a good conscience, from honourable purposes, from right actions, from contempt of the gifts of chance, from an even and calm way of living which treads but one path. For men who leap from one purpose to another, or do not even leap but are carried over by a sort of hazard,—how can such wavering and unstable persons possess any good that is fixed and lasting?”