Discourses - Book I   

This it is to have studied what a man ought to study; to have made
desire, aversion, free from hindrance, and free from all that a man
would avoid. I must die. If now, I am ready to die. If, after a
short time, I now dine because it is the dinner-hour; after this I
will then die. How? Like a man who gives up what belongs to another.

CHAPTER 2

How a Man on every occasion can maintain his Proper Character

To the rational animal only is the irrational intolerable; but
that which is rational is tolerable. Blows are not naturally
intolerable. "How is that?" See how the Lacedaemonians endure whipping
when they have learned that whipping is consistent with reason. "To
hang yourself is not intolerable." When, then, you have the opinion
that it is rational, you go and hang yourself. In short, if we
observe, we shall find that the animal man is pained by nothing so
much as by that which is irrational; and, on the contrary, attracted
to nothing so much as to that which is rational.
But the rational and the irrational appear such in a different way
to different persons, just as the good and the bad, the profitable and
the unprofitable. For this reason, particularly, we need discipline,
in order to learn how to adapt the preconception of the rational and
the irrational to the several things conformably to nature. But in
order to determine the rational and the irrational, we use not only
the of external things, but we consider also what is appropriate to
each person. For to one man it is consistent with reason to hold a
chamber pot for another, and to look to this only, that if he does not
hold it, he will receive stripes, and he will not receive his food:
but if he shall hold the pot, he will not suffer anything hard or
disagreeable. But to another man not only does the holding of a
chamber pot appear intolerable for himself, but intolerable also for
him to allow another to do this office for him. If, then, you ask me
whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you
that the receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it,
and the being scourged is a greater indignity than not being scourged;
so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the
chamber pot. "But this," you say, "would not be worthy of me." Well,
then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the
inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are
worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell
themselves at various prices.
For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go
down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus
said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do
not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even
deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to
deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of
external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own
character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is