#key doctrines

Of the things which wisdom provides for the blessedness of one’s whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.

The purest security is that which comes from a quiet life and withdrawal from the many, although a certain degree of security from others does come by means of the power to repel attacks and by means of prosperity.

Let nothing be done in your life which will cause you to fear if it is discovered by your neighbor.

The justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, neither to harm one another nor be harmed.

Some people want to become famous and respected, believing that this is the way to acquire security against others. Thus if the life of such people is secure, they acquire the natural good; but if it is not secure, they do not have that for the sake of which they strove from the beginning according to what is naturally congenial.

All those who had the power to acquire the greatest confidence from the threats posed by their neighbors also thereby lived together most pleasantly with the surest guarantee; and since they enjoyed the fullest sense of belonging they did not grieve the early death of the departed, as though it called for pity.

One who has made the best arrangements for confidence about external threats is one who has made the manageable things akin to oneself, and has at least made the unmanageable things not alien to oneself. But one avoided all contact with things for which not even this could be managed and one drove out of their life everything which it profited them to drive out.

If objective circumstances have not changed and things believed to be just have been shown in actual practice not to be in accord with our basic grasp of justice, then those things were not just. And if objective circumstances do change, and the same things which had been just turn out to be no longer useful, then those things were just as long as they were useful for the mutual associations of fellow citizens; but later, when they were not useful, they were no longer just.