Nothing, says the poet, is more miserable than to range over all things, to spy into the depths of the earth, and search, by conjecture, into the souls of those around us, yet not to perceive that it is enough for a man to devote himself to that divinity which is within him, and to pay it genuine worship.
And this worship consists in keeping it pure from every passion and folly, and from desiring after anything done by Gods or men. The work of the Gods is to be reverenced for its excellence. The works of men should be dear for the sake of the bond of kinship, or pitied, as we must pity them sometimes, for their lack of the knowledge of good and evil. And men are not less maimed by this defect than by their want of power to know white from black.
Meditations 2:13
as part of collection, Roman Art from the Louvre, currently on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN ORG XMIT: KOD
This one is elegantly put, and also reinforces the common refrain – do not trouble yourself with the actions of others, be they your fellow man, or the divine. These are not things you can control. What can you control? Yourself. Your Desires. Your actions. Put the work in here, not in judging the lives of other.
