What is the condition of a common kind of man and of a philosopher

The first difference between a common person and a philosopher is
this: the common person says, "Woe to me for my little child, for my
brother, for my father." The philosopher, if he shall ever be
compelled to say, "Woe to me," stops and says, "but for myself." For
nothing which is independent of the will can hinder or damage the
will, and the will can only hinder or damage itself. If, then, we
ourselves incline in this direction, so as, when we are unlucky, to
blame ourselves and to remember that nothing else is the cause of
perturbation or loss of tranquillity except our own opinion, I swear
to you by all the gods that we have made progress. But in the
present state of affairs we have gone another way from the
beginning. For example, while we were still children, the nurse, if we
ever stumbled through want of care, did not chide us, but would beat
the stone. But what did the stone do? Ought the stone to have moved on
account of your child's folly? Again, if we find nothing to eat on
coming out of the bath, the pedagogue never checks our appetite, but
he flogs the cook. Man, did we make you the pedagogue of the cook
and not of the child? Correct the child, improve him. In this way even
when we are grown up we are like children. For he who is unmusical
is a child in music; he who is without letters is a child in learning:
he who is untaught, is a child in life.

CHAPTER 20

That we can derive advantage from all external things

In the case of appearances, which are objects of the vision,
nearly all have allowed the good and the evil to be in ourselves,
and not in externals. No one gives the name of good to the fact that
it is day, nor bad to the fact that it is night, nor the name of the
greatest evil to the opinion that three are four. But what do men say?
They say that knowledge is good, and that error is bad; so that even
in respect to falsehood itself there is a good result, the knowledge
that it is falsehood. So it ought to be in life also. "Is health a
good thing, and is sickness a bad thing" No, man. "But what is it?" To
be healthy, and healthy in a right way, is good: to be healthy in a
bad way is bad; so that it is possible to gain advantage even from
sickness, I declare. For is it not possible to gain advantage even
from death, and is it not possible to gain advantage from
mutilation? Do you think that Menoeceus gained little by death? "Could
a man who says so, gain so much as Menoeceus gained?" Come, man, did
he not maintain the character of being a lover of his country, a man
of great mind, faithful, generous? And if he had continued to live,
would he not have lost all these things? would he not have gained
the opposite? would he not have gained the name of coward, ignoble,
a hater of his country, a man who feared death? Well, do you think
that he gained little by dying? "I suppose not." But did the father of