rom
desire, that thou mayest hereafter conform thy desire to Reason.

CII

Thou wouldst do good unto men? then show them by thine own example
what kind of men philosophy can make, and cease from foolish trifling.
Eating, do good to them that eat with thee; drinking, to them that drink
with thee; yield unto all, give way, and bear with them. Thus shalt thou
do them good: but vent not upon them thine own evil humour!

CIII

Even as bad actors cannot sing alone, but only in chorus: so some cannot
walk alone.

Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with
thyself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around
thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art!

CIV

You would fain be victor at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh
the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your
hand--if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet,
abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours,
in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a
word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as though to a
physician.

Then in the hour of contest, you will have to delve the ground, it may
chance dislocate an arm, sprain an ankle, gulp down abundance of yellow
sand, be scourge with the whip--and with all this sometimes lose the
victory. Count the cost--and then, if your desire still holds, try the
wrestler's life. Else let me 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 stage-playing, 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, givin