then you will confirm the saying of Hesiod to be true,

With constant ills the dilatory strives.

* * * * *

OF INCONSISTENCY.--Some things men readily confess, and other things
they do not. No one then will confess that he is a fool or without
understanding; but quite the contrary you will hear all men saying, I
wish that I had fortune equal to my understanding. But men readily
confess that they are timid, and they say: I am rather timid, I confess;
but as to other respects you will not find me to be foolish. A man will
not readily confess that he is intemperate; and that he is unjust, he
will not confess at all. He will by no means confess that he is envious
or a busybody. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What
then is the reason?

The chief thing (the ruling thing) is inconsistency and confusion in the
things which relate to good and evil. But different men have different
reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do not confess
at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of a good
disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the absolute
characteristic of a slave. And they do not at all admit (confess) the
things which are offences against society. But in the case of most
errors for this reason chiefly they are induced to confess them, because
they imagine that there is something involuntary in them as in timidity
and compassion; and if a man confess that he is in any respect
intemperate, he alleges love (or passion) as an excuse for what is
involuntary. But men do not imagine injustice to be at all involuntary.
There is also in jealousy, as they suppose, something involuntary; and
for this reason they confess to jealousy also.

Living then among such men, who are so confused, so ignorant of what
they say, and of the evils which they have or have not, and why they
have them, or how they shall be relieved of them, I think it is worth
the trouble for a man to watch constantly (and to ask) whether I also am
one of them, what imagination I have about myself, how I conduct myself,
whether I conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct myself as a
temperate man, whether I ever say this, that I have been taught to be
prepared for everything that may happen. Have I the consciousness, which
a man who knows nothing ought to have, that I know nothing? Do I go to
my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared to obey? or do I like a
sn