210107 What I learned in my studies this morning

From The Daily Stoic: 

“The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.”—E PICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.11.6– 7

Today's Tao:

One must know when to stop. 

Knowing when to stop averts trouble. 

Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Unifying Agents:

Hatred

Common hatred unites the most heterogeneous elements. To share a common hatred, with an enemy even, is to infect him with a feeling of kinship, and thus sap his powers of resistance. Hitler used anti-Semitism not only to unify his Germans but also to sap the resoluteness of Jew-hating Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and finally even France. He made a similar use of anti-communism.

(The True Believer, XIV-66)