The whole combination of soul and body is called a living thing, or animal, and has the designation ‘mortal’ as well. Such a combination cannot be immortal, not on any reasonable account. In fact it is pure fiction, based neither on observation nor on adequate reasoning, that a god is an immortal living thing which has a body and a soul, and that these are bound together by nature for all time.

Plato, Phaedrus 246c-d

Regular reminder that philosophy is not armchair nerdism. It is the love of wisdom, the pursuit of the divine. If your practice of philosophy does not result in significant lifestyle changes, you aren’t a philosopher, you’re just some guy who likes to sound smart.

Is the pleasant to be done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant for the sake of the good. ... But surely we are good, both we and everything else that’s good, when some excellence has come to be present in us? But the best way in which the excellence of each thing comes to be present in it, whether it’s that of an artifact or of a body or a soul as well, or of any animal, is not just any old way, but it is due to whatever organization, correctness, and craftsmanship is bestowed on each of them. ... So it’s when a certain order, the proper one for each thing, comes to be present in it that it makes each of the things there are, good? So also a soul which has its own order is better than a disordered one? So a self-controlled soul is a good one. I say that if a self-controlled soul is a good one, then a soul that’s been affected the opposite way of the self-controlled one is a bad one. And this, it’s turned out, is the foolish and undisciplined one. And surely a self-controlled person would do what’s appropriate with respect to both gods and human beings. For if he did what’s inappropriate, he wouldn’t be self-controlled. And of course if he did what’s appropriate with respect to human beings, he would be doing what’s just, and with respect to gods he would be doing what’s pious, and one who does what is just and pious must necessarily be just and pious. Yes, and he would also necessarily be brave, for it’s not like a self-controlled man to either pursue or avoid what isn’t appropriate, but to avoid and pursue what he should, whether these are things to do, or people, or pleasures and pains, and to stand fast and endure them where he should. So, it’s necessarily very much the case, Callicles, that the self-controlled man, because he’s just and brave and pious, as we’ve recounted, is a completely good man, that the good man does well and admirably whatever he does, and that the man who does well is blessed and happy, while the corrupt man, the one who does badly, is miserable. ... And if it is true, then a person who wants to be happy must evidently pursue and practice self-control.

Plato, Gorgias, 506c-507d

"Perhaps one who is truly a man should stop thinking about how long he will live. He should not be attached to life but should commit these concerns to the god and believe the women who say that not one single person can escape fate. He should thereupon give consideration to how he might live the part of his life still before him as well as possible."

Plato, Gorgias 512e

O dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

Socrates’ prayer in Plato’s Phaedrus, 279c

More especially, the very antiquity of these practices seems to have corrupted the natural pleasures of which are common to man and beast. For these perversions, your two states may well be the first to be blamed, as well as any others that make a particular point of gymnastic exercises. Circumstances may make you treat this subject either light-heartedly or seriously; in either case you ought to bear in mind that when male and female come together in order to have a child, the pleasure they experience seems to arise entirely naturally. But homosexual intercourse and lesbianism seem to be unnatural crimes of the first rank, and are committed because men and women cannot control their desire for pleasure. It is the Cretans we all hold to blame for making up the story of Ganymede: they were so firmly convinced that their laws came from Zeus that they saddled him with this fable, in order to have a divine 'precedent' when enjoying their particular pleasure.

Plato, Laws, 636c

The actions that are appropriate for us can generally be determined by our relationships. He is your father. This tells you to take care of him, to yield to him in all things, to put up with him when he abuses you or beats you.

‘But he is a bad father.’

Nature did not provide for you a good father, but a father. Your brother wrongs you? Well then, maintain your relationship to him. Do not think about what he is doing, but about what you will have to do if you want to keep your moral character in accordance with nature. For no one can harm you unless you wish it. You will be harmed only when you think you are harmed. If you get into the habit of looking at the relationships implied by ‘neighbor’, ‘citizen’, ‘commander’, you will discover what is proper to expect from each.

Epictetus, The Handbook, 30

This is one of the trickier passages in Epictetus as it can be read as advocating that you be utterly passive. That is not the meaning here. Rather, the point is that the badness of the other person (or people) is not your business. Your concern is to do what is correct and appropriate regardless of what they are doing.

It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of all men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil, nature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery bad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but the money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy thinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the soul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the sake of goodness. The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

Sallust, On the Gods and the World

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” A love of wisdom should be your motivation - not escape from feelings, not cool mystical experiences, not some kind of status as an intellectual, not your political opinions. If you are not motivated by a love for wisdom, you are walking down the wrong path.

Since Evil is here, ‘haunting this world by necessary law’, and it is the Soul’s design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence.

But what is this escape?

‘In attaining Likeness to God’, we read. And this is explained as ‘becoming just and holy, living by wisdom’, the entire nature grounded in Virtue.

But does not Likeness by way of Virtue imply Likeness to some being that has Virtue? To what Divine Being, then, would our Likeness be? To the Being - must we not think? - in Which, above all, such excellence seems to inhere, that is to the Soul of the Cosmos and to the Principle ruling within it, the Principle endowed with a wisdom most wonderful. What could be more fitting than that we, living in this world, should become Like to its ruler?

Plotinus, Ennead 1.2.1

Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it." Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise returned? "But he who took it away is a bad man." What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives it to you to possess, take care of it; but don't view it as your own, just as travelers view a hotel.

Epictetus, The Handbook 11

In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise - for they are wise - and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you don’t think you need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think you need.

Plato, Symposium, 204a

Socrates: Let us proceed by taking up this question.
Protarchus: What question?
Socrates: Whether we hold the view that the universe and this whole world order are ruled by unreason and irregularity, as chance would have it, or whether they are not rather, as our forebears taught us, governed by reason and by the order of a wonderful intelligence.
Protarchus: How can you even think of a comparison here, Socrates? What you suggest now is downright impious, I would say. The only account that can do justice to the wonderful spectacle presented by the cosmic order of sun, moon, and stars and the revolution of the whole heaven, is that reason arranges it all, and I for my part would never waver in saying or believing it.

Plato, Philebus, 28d-e

Now why did he who framed this whole universe of becoming frame it? Let us state the reason why: He was good, and one who is good can never become jealous of anything. And so, being free of jealousy, he wanted everything to become as much like himself as was possible. In fact, men of wisdom will tell you (and you couldn't do better than to accept their claim) that this, more than anything else, was the most preeminent reason for the origin of the world's coming to be. The god wanted everything to be good and nothing to be bad so far as that was possible, and so he took over all that was visible - not at rest but in discordant and disorderly motion - and brought it from a state of disorder to one of order, because he believed that order was in ever way better than disorder. Now it wasn't permitted (nor is it now) that one who is supremely good should do anything but what is best. Accordingly, the god reasoned and concluded that in the realm of things naturally visible no unintelligent thing could as a whole be better than anything which does possess intelligence as a whole, and he further concluded that it is impossible for anything to come to possess intelligence apart from soul. Guided by the reasoning, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, and so he constructed the universe. He wanted to produce a piece of work that would be as excellent and supreme as its nature would allow. This, then, in keeping with our likely account, is how we must say divine providence brought our world into being as a truly living thing, endowed with soul and intelligence.

Plato, Timaeus, 29e-30b

Many statements of Socrates would serve as excellent prayers or mantras. For example:

"May it be for the best. If it so pleases the gods, so be it." - Crito, 43d

Now, all that is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is not ill-proportioned. Hence we must take it that if a living thing is to be in good condition, it will be well-proportioned. … In determining health and disease or virtue and vice no proportion or lack of it is more important than that between soul and body – yet we do not think about any of them nor do we realize that when a vigorous and excellent soul is carried about by a too frail and puny frame, or when the two are combined in the opposite way, the living thing as a whole lacks beauty, because it is lacking in the most important of proportions. That living thing, however, which finds itself in the opposite condition is, for those who are able to observe it, the most beautiful, the most desirable of all things to behold. … From both of these conditions [of ill-proportion between soul and body] there is in fact one way to preserve oneself, and that is not to exercise the soul without exercising the body, nor the body without the soul, so that each may be balanced by the other and so be sound. The mathematician, then, or the ardent devotee of any other intellectual discipline should also provide exercise for his body by taking part in gymnastics, while one who takes care to develop his body should in his turn practice the exercises of the soul by applying himself to the arts and to every pursuit of wisdom, if he is to truly deserve the joint epithets of “fine and good.”

Plato, Timaeus, 87c - 88c

Most honored of immortals, many-named one, ever omnipotent,
Zeus, prime mover of nature, steering all things by your law,
Hail!
For it is proper for all mortals to speak to you:
For we all descend from you, bearing our share of your likeness
We alone, of all mortal creatures that live and move on earth.
So, I shall make song of you constantly and sing forever of your might.
Truly, this whole universe, spinning around the earth,
Obeys you wherever you lead, and willingly submits to your rule;
Such is the servant you hold in your unconquerable hands,
A double-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt.
For by its strikes all the works of nature happen.
By it you direct the universal reason, which pervades all things
Intermixing with the great and small lights of the heavens.
Because of this you are the greatest, the highest ruler of all.
Not a single thing that is done on earth happens without you, God,
Nor in the divine heavenly sphere nor in the sea,
Except for what bad people do in their foolishness.
But you know how to make the crooked straight
And to bring order to the disorderly; even the unloved is loved by you.
For you have so joined all things into one, the good and the bad,
That they all share in a single unified everlasting reason.

It is shirked and avoided by all the wicked among mortals,
The wretched, who ever long for the getting of good things,
Neither see nor hear God’s universal law,
By which, obeying with understanding, they could share in the good life.
But instead they chase after this and that, far from the good,
Some in their aggressive zeal for fame,
Others with a disordered obsession with profits,
Still others in indulgence and the pleasurable exertions of the body.
[They desire the good] but are carried off here and there,
All the while in zealous pursuit of completely different outcomes.
But bountiful Zeus, shrouded in dark clouds and ruling the thunder,
Protect human beings from their ruinous ignorance;
Scatter it from our souls, grant that we might obtain
True judgment on which you rely to steer all things with justice;

So that having won honor, we may honor you in return,
Constantly singing of your works, as it is proper
For mortals to do. For neither mortals nor gods have any greater privilege
Than to make everlasting song of the universal law in justice.

Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus

A very useful collection of historical prayers to the Roman gods.

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Prayers

All beings proceed from One First Cause.

For either there is no cause of any being, or the causes of all finite things revolve in a circle, or the as­cent (progression) is to infinity, and one thing is the cause of another, and the presubsistence of essence (cause) will in no respect cease. If, however, there is no cause of beings, there will be neither an order of things second and first, of things perfecting and perfec­ted, of things adorning and adorned, of things generat­ing and generated, and of agents and patients, nor will there be any science of beings. For the knowledge of causes is the work of science, and we are then said to know scientifically when we know the causes of things. But if causes revolve in a circle, the same things will be prior and posterior, more powerful and more imbecile. For every thing which produces is better than the nature of that which is produced. Nor does it make a differ­ence to conjoin cause to effect, and through many or fewer media to produce from cause. For cause will be superior to all the intermediate natures of which it is the cause; and the more numerous the media the greater is the causality of the cause.

And if the addition of causes is to infinity, and there is always again a cause prior to another, there will be no science of any being: for there is not a knowledge of any thing infinite. But causes being unknown, neither will there be a science of the things consequent to the causes. If, therefore, it is necessary that there should be a cause of beings, and causes are distinct from the things caused, and there is not an ascent to infinity, there is a First Cause of beings, from which as from a root every thing proceeds,—some things indeed being nearer to but others more remote from it. The neces­sity of the existence of One Principle has been demon­strated, because all multitude is secondary to The One.

Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 11