“The way nature has blended you into the compound whole does not prevent you drawing a boundary around yourself and keeping what is your own in your own control.  

“Always remember this: remember too that the happy life depends on very little.  And do not think, just because you have given up hope of becoming a philosopher or scientist, you should therefore despair of a free spirit, integrity, social conscience, obedience to the gods.  

“It is wholly possible to become a ‘divine person’ without anybody’s recognition.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7:67