82 definitions
Conscience (n.) is the spark of the soul's heavenly origin that never quite goes out: it can be pressed down but never oppressed, which is why even the wicked, against their will, approve of virtue.
Constancy (n.) is a right and immovable strength of mind, neither lifted up nor pressed down by outward or chance events.
Flight (n.) from sorrow is like turning your back on an enemy: it leaves you more exposed. Many have won by fighting, none by fleeing.
Grief (n.) is the hunter's dart in Virgil's wounded deer: she flees into the woods, but the arrow stays in her side and travels with her.
Grief (n.) that has settled deep can be soothed by music, wine and sleep only in its first sparks; they quench the kindling, never the rooted fire.
Inconstancy (n.) always loathes what is present: at sea it longs for land, and on land it longs for the sea.
Mind (n.) that lets fall its sceptre becomes so abject that it willingly serves its own servants.
Obstinacy (n.) is like a blown bladder: hard to press under water, but ready to leap up on its own — it resists being lowered, never being puffed up.
Passions (n.) follow the traveller everywhere, and the danger is that they are not his companions but his captain: he follows them, not they him.
Patience (n.) is the true mother of constancy: a willing, ungrudging endurance of whatever can happen to or in a man.
Peace (n.) cannot be found by moving somewhere quiet if you carry war with you: the distracted mind is always at war with itself, in coveting, fleeing, hoping, despairing.