tell you that you will be behaving like a pack of children
playing now at wrestlers, now at gladiators; presently falling to
trumpeting and anon to stageplaying, when the fancy takes them
for what they have seen. And you are even the same: wrestler,
gladiator, philosopher, orator all by turns and none of them with
your whole soul. Like an ape, you mimic what you see, to one
thing constant never; the thing that is familiar charms no more.
This is because you never undertook aught with due consideration,
nor after strictly testing and viewing it from every side; no,
your choice was thoughtless; the glow of your desire had waxed
cold . . . .

Friend, bethink you first what it is you would do, and then
what your own nature is able to bear. Would you be a wrestler,
consider your shoulders, your thighs, your lions--not all men are
formed to the same end. Think you to be a philosopher while
acting as you do? think you go on thus eating, thus drinking,
giving way in like manner to wrath and to displeasure? Nay, you
must watch, you must labour; overcome certain desires; quit your
familiar friends, submit to be despised by your slave, to be held
in derision by them that meet you, to take the lower place in all
things, in office, in positions of authority, in courts of law.

Weigh these things fully, and then, if you will, lay to your
hand; if as the price of these things you would gain Freedom,
Tranquillity, and passionless Serenity.

CV

He that hath no musical instruction is a child in Music; he
that hath no letters is a child in Learning; he that is untaught
is a child in Life.

CVI

Can any profit be derived from these men? Aye, from all.
"What, even from a reviler?"
"Why, tell me what profit a wrestler gains from him you
exercises him beforehand? The very greatest: he trains me in the
practice of endurance, of controlling my temper, of gentle ways.
You deny it. What, the man who lays hold of my neck, and
disciplines loins and shoulders, does me good, . . . while he
that trains me to keep my temper does me none? This is what it
means, not knowing how to gain advantage from men! Is my
neighbour bad? Bad to himself, but good to me: he brings my good
temper, my gentleness into play. Is my father bad? Bad to
himself, but good to me. This is the rod of Hermes; touch what
you will with it, they say, and it becomes gold. Nay, but bring
what you will and I will transmute it into Good. Bring sickness,
bring death, bring poverty and reproach, bring trial for life--