Epictetus, Golden Sayings 123

Shall we never wean ourselves—shall we never heed the teachings of Philosophy (unless perchance they have been sounding in our ears like an enchanter's drone):

This World is one great City, and one is the substance whereof it is fashioned. A certain period indeed there needs must be, while these give place to those; some must perish for others to succeed; some move and some abide. Yet all is full of friends—first God, then Men, whom Nature has bound by ties of kindred each to each.

IMAGE: John Martin, The City of God (1851)