The Enchiridion   

23. If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, so as
to wish to please anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme
of life. Be contented, then, in everything with being a philosopher;
and, if you wish to be thought so likewise by anyone, appear so to
yourself, and it will suffice you.
24. Don't allow such considerations as these distress you. "I will
live in dishonor, and be nobody anywhere." For, if dishonor is an
evil, you can no more be involved in any evil by the means of another,
than be engaged in anything base. Is it any business of yours, then,
to get power, or to be admitted to an entertainment? By no means.
How, then, after all, is this a dishonor? And how is it true that
you will be nobody anywhere, when you ought to be somebody in those
things only which are in your own control, in which you may be of
the greatest consequence? "But my friends will be unassisted." --
What do you mean by unassisted? They will not have money from you,
nor will you make them Roman citizens. Who told you, then, that these
are among the things in our own control, and not the affair of others?
And who can give to another the things which he has not himself? "Well,
but get them, then, that we too may have a share." If I can get them
with the preservation of my own honor and fidelity and greatness of
mind, show me the way and I will get them; but if you require me to
lose my own proper good that you may gain what is not good, consider
how inequitable and foolish you are. Besides, which would you rather
have, a sum of money, or a friend of fidelity and honor? Rather assist
me, then, to gain this character than require me to do those things
by which I may lose it. Well, but my country, say you, as far as depends
on me, will be unassisted. Here again, what assistance is this you
mean? "It will not have porticoes nor baths of your providing." And
what signifies that? Why, neither does a smith provide it with shoes,
or a shoemaker with arms. It is enough if everyone fully performs
his own proper business. And were you to supply it with another citizen
of honor and fidelity, would not he be of use to it? Yes. Therefore
neither are you yourself useless to it. "What place, then, say you,
will I hold in the state?" Whatever you can hold with the preservation
of your fidelity and honor. But if, by desiring to be useful to that,
you lose these, of what use can you be to your country when you are
become faithless and void of shame.
25. Is anyone preferred before you at an entertainment, or in a compliment,
or in being admitted to a consultation? If these things are good,
you ought to be glad that he has gotten them; and if they are evil,
don't be grieved that you have not gotten them. And remember that
you cannot, without using the same means [which others do] to acquire
things not in our own control, expect to be thought worthy of an equal
share of them. For how can he who does not frequent the door of any
[great] man, does not attend him, does not praise him, have an equal
share with him who does? You are unjust, then, and insatiable, if
you are unwilling to pay the price for which these things are sold,
and would have them for nothing. For how much is lettuce sold? Fifty
cents, for instance. If another, then, paying fifty cents, takes the
lettuce, and you, not paying it, go without them, don't imagine that