Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium 71:
“Let us make all of our time our own! Yet this cannot happen unless we first begin to belong to ourselves. When will it happen that one can despise either fortune? When will it happen that one could, with all their feelings suppressed and subjected to their will, say ‘I have conquered’? You ask whom I have conquered? Not the Persians, not the farthest boundaries of the Medes, nor any warlike people who lie beyond the Dahae – no, I have conquered avarice, ambition, and the fear of death which has itself defeated the victors of nations.”
Id agamus ut nostrum omne tempus sit; non erit autem, nisi prius nos nostri esse coeperimus. Quando continget contemnere utramque fortunam, quando continget omnibus oppressis affectibus et sub arbitrium suum adductis hanc vocem emittere ‘vici’? Quem vicerim quaeris? Non Persas nec extrema Medorum nec si quid ultra Dahas bellicosum iacet, sed avaritiam, sed ambitionem, sed metum mortis, qui victores gentium vicit.
