A passage from Epictetus
Epictetus, Enchiridion 12
✱
If you would improve, lay aside such reasonings as these: 'If I neglect my affairs, I shall not have a maintenance; if I do not punish my servant, he will be good for nothing.' For it is better to die with hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation.
Related passages
✱
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being.'
✱
Take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed with purple; for it does happen. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation.
✱
It is a man's special privilege to love even those who wrong him.