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AND so we ought always to remain shut up in our cell. For whenever a
man has strayed from it and returns fresh to it and begins again to live
there he will be upset and disturbed. For if he has let it go he cannot
without difficulty and pains recover that fixed purpose of mind, which he
had gained when he remained in his cell; and as through this he has gone
back, he will not think anything of the advance which he has missed, and
which he would have secured if he had not allowed himself to leave his
cell, but he will rather congratulate himself if he finds that he has
regained that condition from which he fell away. For just as time once lost
and gone cannot any more be recovered, so neither can those advantages
which have been missed be restored: for whatever earnest purpose of the
mind there may be afterwards, it will be the profit of the day then
present, and the gain that belongs to the time that then is, and will not
make up for the gain that has been once for all lost.
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