The Modern PoetFor your words and others.
Release 15
Always tinkering.

I use this place too. I keep finding things to add, change, or make a little better.

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This round: quieter reading, book-style chapters, and one HH throughout.

THE MODERN POET

The Enchiridion · Section XII

By Epictetus

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 were better to die of hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation; and it is better that your servant should be bad than you unhappy. Begin therefore with little things. Is a little oil spilled or a little wine stolen? Say to yourself, “This is the price paid for peace and tranquillity; and nothing is to be had for nothing.” And when you call your servant, consider that it is possible he may not come at your call; or, if he does, that he may not do what you wish. But it is not at all desirable for him, and very undesirable for you, that it should be in his power to cause you any disturbance.

Original source ↗

Thomas Wentworth Higginson translation · public domain in the USA

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Box one belongs to works shared here—pictures, poems, or both—with a new selection each hour. The other three change one at a time every fifteen minutes. One is a Halloween poem through October. Skip any card, or pause while you read.

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