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 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, indeed, who can speak like him?), have
           a mind to be philosophers too. Consider first, man, what the
           matter is, and what your own nature is able to bear. If you
           would be a wrestler, consider your shoulders, your back, your
           thighs; for different persons are made for different things.
           Do you think that you can act as you do, and be a philosopher?
           That you can eat and drink, and be angry and discontented as
           you are now? You must watch, you must labor, you must get the
           better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintance, be
           despised by your servant, be laughed at by those you meet;
           come off worse than others in everything, in magistracies, in