There is temptation in the very breath you draw, since you feel a dread if it is checked.

You must live so as to be ready at any moment to give up your life with gladness, as a burden which it has been appointed you to bear for a time.

There is temptation in the love you feel for those around you; it makes you cling to life; you are tempted to grieve if you lose them, whereas death is the greatest blessing in the gift of God.

And just because it is so, we must not snatch at it before our time; it would be a sin to kill ourselves, since that would be to escape from the tasks set us.

Many pleasures would seem to be innocent, but even these it is better to renounce, since for that purpose does every pleasure exist.