Discourses - Book III   

circumstances, others for the purpose of complying with others. and
some according to a fixed scheme of life.
You must root out of men these two things, arrogance and distrust.
Arrogance, then, is the opinion that you want nothing: but distrust is
the opinion that you cannot be happy when so many circumstances
surround you. Arrogance is removed by confutation; and Socrates was
the first who practiced this. And, that the thing is not impossible,
inquire and seek. This search will do you no harm; and in a manner
this is philosophizing, to seek how it is possible to employ desire
and aversion without impediment.
"I am superior to you, for my father is a man of consular rank."
Another says, "I have been a tribune, but you have not." If we were
horses, would you say, "My father was swifter?" "I have much barley
and fodder, or elegant neck ornaments." If, then, while you were
saying this, I said, "Be it so: let us run then." Well, is there
nothing in a man such as running in a horse, by which it will he known
which is superior and inferior? Is there not modesty, fidelity,
justice? Show yourself superior in these, that you may be superior
as a man. If you tell me that you can kick violently, I also will
say to you that you are proud of that which is the act of an ass.

CHAPTER 15

That we ought to proceed with circumspection to everything

In every act consider what precedes and what follows, and then
proceed to the act. If you do not consider, you will at first begin
with spirit, since you have not thought at all of the things which
follow; but afterward, when some consequences have shown themselves,
you will basely desist. "I wish to conquer at the Olympic games." "And
I too, by the gods: for it is a fine thing." But consider here what
precedes and what follows; and then, if it is for your good, undertake
the thing. You must act according to rules, follow strict diet,
abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself by compulsion at fixed
times, in heat, in cold; drink no cold water, nor wine, when there
is opportunity of drinking it. In a word you must surrender yourself
to the trainer as you do to a physician. Next in the contest, you must
be covered with sand, sometimes dislocate a hand, sprain an ankle,
swallow a quantity of dust, be scourged with the whip; and after
undergoing all this, you must sometimes be conquered. After
reckoning all these things, if you have still an inclination, go to
the athletic practice. If you do not reckon them, observe you behave
like children who at one time you wi play as wrestlers, then as
gladiators, then blow a trumpet, then act a tragedy, when they have
seen and admired such things. So you also do: you are at one time a
wrestler, then a gladiator, then a philosopher, then a rhetorician;
but with your whole soul you are nothing: like the ape, you imitate
all that you see; and always one thing after another pleases you,
but that which becomes familiar displeases you. For you have never
undertaken anything after consideration, nor after having explored the