Your prayer must be for a ...

Your prayer must be for a healthy mind in a sound body. Ask for a brave soul that has no fear of death, deems length of life the least of nature's gifts and is able to bear any kind of sufferings, knows neither wrath nor desire and believes the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and feasts and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. Reveal what you are able to give yourself; the only path to a life of tranquility lies through virtue.
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 Juvenal

Quotes from the same author

Do you expect, forsooth, that a mother will hand down to her children principles which differ from her own?
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 Juvenal
Give up all hope of peace so long as your mother-in-law is alive.
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 Juvenal
They do not easily rise whose abilities are repressed by poverty at home. [Lat., Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi.]
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 Juvenal
Ask for a valiant heart which has banished the fear of death, which looks upon length of days as one of the least of nature's gifts; which is able to suffer every kind of hardship, is proof against anger, craves for nothing, and reckons the trials and gruelling labours of Hercules as more desirable blessings than the amorous ease and the banquets and cushions of Sardanapallus. The things that I recommend you can grant to yourself.
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 Juvenal
No god is absent where prudence dwells.
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 Juvenal