Stoic Snippets 170

If you did ever see a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying anywhere apart from the rest of the body, such does a man make himself, as far as he can, who is not content with what happens, and separates himself from others, or does anything unsocial. 

Suppose that you have detached yourself from the natural unity—for you were made by nature a part, but now you have cut yourself off—yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in your power again to unite yourself. 

God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal; and when he has been separated, he has allowed him to return and to be united and to resume his place as a part. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.34