Ausschnitt aus "An Essay on Man" (Ernst Cassirer)

All that which befalls man from without is null and void. His essence does not depend on external circumstances; it depends exclusively on the value he gives to himself. Riches, rank, social distinction, even health or intellectual gifts – all this becomes indifferent. What matters alone is the tendency, the inner attitude of the soul; and this inner principle cannot be disturbed. »That which does not make a man himself worse than before cannot make his life worse either, nor injure it whether from without or within.«
The requirement of self-questioning appears, therefore, in Stoicism, as in the conception of Socrates, as man’s privilege and his fundamental duty. But this duty is now understood in a broader sense; it has not only a moral but also a universal and metaphysical background. »Never fail to ask thyself this question and to cross-examine thyself thus: What relation have I to this part of me which they call the ruling Reason? He who lives in harmony with his own self, his demon, lives in harmony with the universe; for both the universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle. Man proves his inherent power of criticism, of judgment and discernment, by conceiving that in this correlation the Self, not the Universe, has the leading part. Once the Self has won its inner form, this form remains unalterable and imperturbable. »[…] a sphere once formed continues round and true.« That is, so to speak, the last word of Greek philosophy – a word that once more contains and explains the spirit in which it was originally conceived. This spirit was a spirit of judgment, of critical discernment between being and nonbeing, between truth and illusion, between good and evil. Life in itself is changing and fluctuating, but the true value of life is to be sought in an eternal order that admits of no change. It is not in the world of our senses, it is only by the power of our judgment that we can grasp this order. Judgment is the central power in man, the common source of truth and morality. For it is the only thing in which man entirely depends on himself; it is free, autonomous, self-sufficing.