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 snivelling boy go to my school to learn history and understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if it should happen so, to explain them also to others?  Man, you have had a fight in the house with a poor slave, you have turned the family upside down, you have frightened the neighbors, and you come to me as if you were a wise man, and you take your seat and judge how I have explained some word, and how I have babbled whatever came into my head.  You come full of envy, and humbled, because you bring nothing from home; and you sit during the discussion thinking of nothing else than how your father is disposed towards you and your brother.  What are they saying about me there? now they think that I am improving, and are saying, He will return with all knowledge.  I wish I could learn everything before I return; but much labor is necessary, and no one sends me anything, and the baths at Nicopolis are dirty; everything is bad at home, and bad here.

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On friendship.—­What a man applies himself to earnestly, that he naturally loves.  Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad?  By no means.  Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way concern themselves?  Not to these either.  It remains then that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which are good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things also.  Whoever then understands what is good can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, how can he possess the power of loving?  To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.

For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interests.  Whatever then appears to it an impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses; for its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interests:  this is father, and brother, and kinsman, and country, and God.  When then the gods appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Aesculapius to be burned when his dear friend died.