FIVE WISE LINES [June 2025]

…we should not be too confident in our belief of anything.

cicero; tusculan disputations

No matter what plans you make,
no matter what you acquire,
the thief will enter from the unguarded side.
Be occupied, then, with what you really value
and let the thief take something less.

Rumi; Mathnawi II

Very little is needed to make a happy life;
it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Marcus aurelius; Meditations

I possess, but I am not possessed by her;
since the best thing is to possess pleasures
without being their slave,
not to be devoid of pleasures.

aristippus [according to Diogenes laertius in
lives of the eminent philosophers]

Do not fear the gods.
Do not fear death.
What is good is easy to attain.
What is painful is easy to endure
.

philodemus; Herculaneum papyrus
[Often referred to as the four cures of epicurus]

The Skepticism-less Skeptic [Limerick]

The philosopher, René Descartes,
said, "I'll doubt everything, just to start."
but once he "proved" God,
what are the odds,
the wheels rolled off his skeptical cart.