"Hold the spirit ...."

Hold the spirit within, and do not be excessive.  Do not allow things to disorder your senses, and do not allow your senses to disorder the mind.

“Inward Training”

"In a sense all of life ...."

In a sense all of life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.

Martin Luther King

"A person's proper truth ...."

“A person’s proper truth comes from heaven and it operates spontaneously and steadily.  Therefore the sages take their law from heaven, prize their truth without bowing to the restrictions of custom.  The stupid do the opposite. They do not take their law from heaven and follow the influences of others.  They do not prize inner truth, but are dominated by ordinary things and waver according to customs.”

“Rites are something created by the vulgar men of the world; the Truth is that which is received from Heaven. By nature it is the way it is and cannot be changed. Therefore the sage patterns himself on Heaven, prizes the Truth, and does not allow himself to be cramped by the vulgar. The stupid man does the opposite of this. He is unable to pattern himself on Heaven and instead frets over human concerns. He does not know enough to prize the Truth but instead, plodding along with the crowd, he allows himself to be changed by vulgar ways, and so is never content.”

Zhuangzi   

"We must, therefore, pursue the things ...."

We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.

Epicurus