But just as those who desire to have their soul attuned and favourable must needs cultivate the virtues of the soul, so those who purpose to gain the same qualities for their body must cultivate health and the powers that accompany health; and indeed all who take thought for the faculties within them, which combine to make them what they are, do so cultivate them with constant and unremitting toil. “You see then how good things spring and grow from toil as from a single root. Never therefore suffer yourself to lose your hold of toil, for with it will be lost, though you little know it, a vast heap of blessings. The Ruler indeed of all heaven and the world possesses and provides to whom He wills good things in ease absolute. Without toil He made this vast universe long ages ago, and now without toil He holds it in perpetual existence, for to know no weariness is an attribute most fitting to God. But it is not so with mortals. To them Nature has given no good thing to be acquired without toil, that here too God may alone be accounted happy—the one and only blessed being.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 8
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