For though we are made especially for the sake of one another, still the ruling power of each of us has its own office, for otherwise my neighbor's wickedness would be my harm, which God has not willed, in order that my unhappiness may not depend on another.
From his personal reflections, this passage explains that while humans are made for mutual aid, individual happiness should not depend on the wickedness of others.
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How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal!
But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite.
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