A passage from Hierocles
Hierocles, Elements of Ethics fr. 4
✱
Each of us is, as it were, entirely encompassed by many circles, some smaller, others larger, some enclosing, others enclosed.
Related passages
✱
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
✱
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being.'
✱
It is a man's special privilege to love even those who wrong him.