Whether you're planning harsh revenge or just mild punishment, think about this: how brief is the time when your victim suffers or when you get that twisted pleasure from their pain? This breath we treasure so much will soon leave us. So while we're still breathing, while we're still living among other people, let's practice being human. Let's not become someone others fear or dread. Let's control our anger despite our losses, the wrongs done to us, the insults, and the mockery. Let's endure our short-lived troubles with grace. While we're busy thinking about what we deserve and worrying about ourselves, death will arrive.
Whether you are thinking of extreme or slighter punishments, how very short is the time during which either your victim is tortured or you enjoy an evil pleasure in another’s pain? This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to any one. Let us keep our tempers in spite of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity our shortlived troubles: while we are considering what is due to ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be upon us.