Discourses - Book IV   

Remember that not only the desire of power and of riches makes us
mean and subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and
of leisure. and of traveling abroad, and of learning. For, to speak
plainly, whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set
upon it places us in subjection to others. What, then, is the
difference between desiring, to be a senator or not desiring to be
one; what is the difference between desiring power or being content
with a private station; what is the difference between saying, "I am
unhappy, I have nothing, to do, but I am bound to my books as a
corpse"; or saying, "I am unhappy, I have no leisure for reading"? For
as salutations and power are things external and independent of the
will, so is a book. For what purpose do you choose to read? Tell me.
For if you only direct your purpose to being amused or learning
something, you are a silly fellow and incapable of enduring labour.
But if you refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a
tranquil and happy life? But if reading does not secure for you a
happy and tranquil life, what is the use of it? But it does secure
this," the man replies, "and for this reason I am vexed that I am
deprived of it." And what is this tranquil and happy life, which any
man can impede; I do not say Caesar or Caesar's friend, but a crow,
a piper, a fever, and thirty thousand other things? But a tranquil and
happy life contains nothing so sure is continuity and freedom from
obstacle. Now I am called to do something: I will go, then, with the
purpose of observing the measures which I must keep, of acting with
modesty, steadiness, without desire and aversion to things external;
and then that I may attend to men, what they say, how they are
moved; and this not with any bad disposition, or that I may have
something to blame or to ridicule; but I turn to myself, and ask if
I also commit the same faults. "How then shall I cease to commit
them?" Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do not: thanks to God.
Come, when you have done these things and have attended to them,
have you done a worse act than when you have read a thousand verses or
written as many? For when you eat, are you grieved because you are not
reading? are you not satisfied with eating according to what you
have learned by reading, and so with bathing and with exercise? Why,
then, do you not act consistently in all things, both when you
approach Caesar and when you approach any person? If you maintain
yourself free from perturbation, free from alarm, and steady; if you
look rather at the things which are done and happen than are looked at
yourself; if you do not envy those who are preferred before you; if
surrounding circumstances do not strike you with fear or admiration,
what do you want? Books? How or for what purpose? for is not this a
preparation for life? and is not life itself made up of certain
other things than this? This is just as if an athlete should weep when
he enters the stadium, because he is not being exercised outside of
it. It was for this purpose that you used to practice exercise; for
this purpose were used the halteres, the dust, the young men as
antagonists; and do you seek for those things now when it is the
time of action? This is just as if in the topic of assent when
appearances present themselves, some of which can he comprehended, and