When death appears an evil, we ought to have this rule in readiness, that it is fit to avoid evil things, and that death is a necessary thing.  For what shall I do, and where shall I escape it?  Suppose that I am not Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, nor able to speak in this noble way.  I will go and I am resolved either to behave bravely myself or to give to another the opportunity of doing so; if I cannot succeed in doing anything myself, I will not grudge another the doing of something noble.  Suppose that it is above our power to act thus; is it not in our power to reason thus?  Tell me where I can escape death; discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit.  Discover to me a charm against death.  If I have not one, what do you wish me to do?  I cannot escape from death.  Shall I not escape from the fear of death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling?  For the origin of perturbation is this, to wish for something, and that this should not happen.  Therefore if I am able to change externals according to my wish, I change them; but if I cannot, I am ready to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me.  For the nature of man is not to endure to be deprived of the good, and not to endure the falling into the evil.  Then at last, when I am neither able to change circumstances nor to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me, I sit down and groan, and abuse whom I can, Zeus and the rest of the gods.  For if they do not care for me, what are they to me?  Yes, but you will be an impious man.  In what respect, then, will it be worse for me than it is now?  To sum up, remember that unless piety and your interest be in the same thing, piety cannot be maintained in any man.  Do not these things seem necessary (true)?

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That we ought not to be angry with men; and what are the small and the great things among men.—­What is the cause of assenting to anything?  The fact that it appears to be true.  It is not possible then to assent to that which appears not to be true.  Why?  Because this is the nature of the understanding, to incline to the true, to be dissatisfied with the false, and in matters uncertain to withhold assent.  What is the proof of this?  Imagine (persuade yourself), if you can, that it is now night.  It is not possible.  Take away your persuasion that it is day.  It is not possible.  Persuade yourself or take away your persuasion that the stars are even in number.  It is impossible.  When then any man assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true.  Well, in acts what have we of the like kind as we have here truth or falsehood?  We have the fit and the not fit (duty and not duty), the profitable and the unprofitable, that which is suitable to a person and that which is not, and whatever is like these.  Can then a man think that a thing is useful to him and not choose it?  He cannot.  How says Medea?