Why then do men look outside themselves for happiness which is within? You are confused by error and ignorance and so I will point out to you the source of perfect happiness. Is anything more precious to you than yourself? You will agree that there is nothing. Then if you possess yourself, you have something you will never want to give up and something which Fortune cannot take from you. If you will consider carefully the following argument, you will have to admit that happiness cannot depend on things which are uncertain. If happiness is the highest good of rational natures, and if nothing which can be lost can be a supreme good (because it is obviously less good than that which cannot be lost), then clearly unstable Fortune cannot pretend to bring happiness. The man who enjoys fleeting happiness either knows that it is perishable, or he doesn't. If he does not know it, his condition is unhappy because it rests on blind ignorance; if he knows his happiness is perishable, he must live in fear of losing what he knows can be easily lost - and such constant fears will not let him be happy. and if he should lose it, would he think that a trivial matter? Whatever can be given up without regret is indeed a thing of little worth.