Meditations VII.67

Nature did not make so intimate a blend in the compound as not to allow a man to isolate himself and keep his own things in his own power. For it is very possible to be a godlike man and yet not to be recognized by any.⁸⁷ Never forget this nor that the happy life depends on the fewest possible things⁸⁸; nor because thou hast been baulked in the hope of becoming skilled in dialectics and physics,⁸⁹ needest thou despair of being free and modest and unselfish and obedient to God.

• 87.Seneca (Epistles 79) instances Democritus, Socrates, and Cato.
• 88.Julian’s The Caesars 427. 21, where Marcus, asked in what consists the imitation of the Gods, says δεῖσθαι τῶν ἐλαχίστων. Compare Lucian’s The Cynic 12: οἱ δ᾽ ἔγγιστοι θεοῖς ἐλαχίστων δέονται. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates 11.

  Julian’s Greek, in translation: “to need as few things as possible.” The Cynic, a dialogue attributed to Lucian that defends the Cynic way of life, in translation: “those nearest the gods need the fewest things.”

• 89.i. 17, § 8; compare v. 5; viii. 1.