Unshakable Peace: Why Your Inner World Matters Most
So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
You will never be able to gain peace as long as you attach your sense of well-being to the things outside yourself. Unattachment, as the Buddha would say.
But then, what are we left with? With the triumph of principles.
And what does this mean? It means that you have to find value not in the material and the wheels of fortune, not in things going this war or another, but in the intangible attitudes and ways of being found inside you that play with the world.
It is a cold objectiveness, with a smile.
“A Stoic is someone…
