The Enchiridion   

he has gained any advantage over you. For as he has the lettuce, so
you have the fifty cents which you did not give. So, in the present
case, you have not been invited to such a person's entertainment,
because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold.
It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Give him then the
value, if it is for your advantage. But if you would, at the same
time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable,
and a blockhead. Have you nothing, then, instead of the supper? Yes,
indeed, you have: the not praising him, whom you don't like to praise;
the not bearing with his behavior at coming in.
26. The will of nature may be learned from those things in which we
don't distinguish from each other. For example, when our neighbor's
boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These
things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise
is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was
broken. Apply this in like manner to greater things. Is the child
or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This
is a human accident." but if anyone's own child happens to die, it
is presently, "Alas I how wretched am I!" But it should be remembered
how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others.
27. As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither
does the nature of evil exist in the world.
28. If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way,
you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing
over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens
to verbally attack you?
29. In every affair consider what precedes and follows, and then undertake
it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit; but not having thought of
the consequences, when some of them appear you will shamefully desist.
"I would conquer at the Olympic games." But consider what precedes
and follows, and then, if it is for your advantage, engage in the
affair. You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from
dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or not, at a stated
hour, in heat and cold; you must drink no cold water, nor sometimes
even wine. In a word, you must give yourself up to your master, as
to a physician. Then, in the combat, you may be thrown into a ditch,
dislocate your arm, turn your ankle, swallow dust, be whipped, and,
after all, lose the victory. When you have evaluated all this, if
your inclination still holds, then go to war. Otherwise, take notice,
you will behave like children who sometimes play like wrestlers, sometimes
gladiators, sometimes blow a trumpet, and sometimes act a tragedy
when they have seen and admired these shows. Thus you too will be
at one time a wrestler, at another a gladiator, now a philosopher,
then an orator; but with your whole soul, nothing at all. Like an
ape, you mimic all you see, and one thing after another is sure to
please you, but is out of favor as soon as it becomes familiar. For
you have never entered upon anything considerately, nor after having
viewed the whole matter on all sides, or made any scrutiny into it,
but rashly, and with a cold inclination. Thus some, when they have
seen a philosopher and heard a man speaking like Euphrates (though,