Has he not given to you magnanimity?  Has he not given to you manliness?  When you have such hands do you still look for one who shall wipe your nose?  But we neither study these things nor care for them.  Give me a man who cares how he shall do anything, not for the obtaining of a thing, but who cares about his own energy.  What man, when he is walking about, cares for his own energy?  Who, when he is deliberating, cares about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that about which he deliberates?  And if he succeeds, he is elated and says, How well we have deliberated; did I not tell you, brother, that it is impossible, when we have thought about anything, that it should not turn out thus?  But if the thing should turn out otherwise, the wretched man is humbled; he knows not even what to say about what has taken place.  Who among us for the sake of this matter has consulted a seer?  Who among us as to his actions has not slept in indifference?  Who?  Give (name) to me one that I may see the man whom I have long been looking for, who is truly noble and ingenuous, whether young or old; name him.

What then are the things which are heavy on us and disturb us?  What else than opinions?  What else than opinions lies heavy upon him who goes away and leaves his companions and friends and places and habits of life?  Now little children, for instance, when they cry on the nurse leaving them for a short time, forget their sorrow if they receive a small cake.  Do you choose then that we should compare you to little children?  No, by Zeus, for I do not wish to be pacified by a small cake, but by right opinions.  And what are these?  Such as a man ought to study all day, and not to be affected by anything that is not his own, neither by companion nor place nor gymnasia, and not even by his own body, but to remember the law and to have it before his eyes.  And what is the divine law?  To keep a man’s own, not to claim that which belongs to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to desire it; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use of it, if you would not cry for your nurse and mamma.  For what matter does it make by what thing a man is subdued, and on what he depends?  In what respect are you better than he who cries for a girl, if you grieve for a little gymnasium, and little porticos, and young men, and such places of amusement?  Another comes and laments that he shall no longer drink the water of Dirce.  Is the Marcian water worse than that of Dirce?  But I was used to the water of Dirce.  And you in turn will be used to the other.  Then if you become attached to this also, cry for this too, and try to make a verse like the verse of Euripides,

  The hot baths of Nero and the Marcian water.

See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men.

When then shall I see Athens again and the Acropolis?  Wretch, are you not content with what you see daily?  Have you anything better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea?  But if indeed you comprehend Him who administers the whole, and carry him about in yourself, do you still desire small stones and a beautiful rock?