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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: said Nekayah, "this world will never afford an opportunity of
deciding. But this, at least, may be maintained, that we do not
always find visible happiness in proportion to visible virtue. All
natural and almost all political evils are incident alike to the
bad and good; they are confounded in the misery of a famine, and
not much distinguished in the fury of a faction; they sink together
in a tempest and are driven together from their country by
invaders. All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience
and a steady prospect of a happier state; this may enable us to
endure calamity with patience, but remember that patience must
oppose pain."
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