In the same way, when some people have seen a philosopher and have heard someone speaking like Euphrates […] , they wish to be philosophers themselves. Man, consider first the nature of the business, and then learn your own natural ability, if you are able to bear it.
Do you wish to be a contender in the pentathlon, or a wrestler?
Look to your arms, your thighs, see what your loins are like. For one man has a natural talent for one thing, another for another.Do you suppose that you can eat in the same fashion, drink in the same fashion, give way to impulse and to irritation, just as you do now?You must keep vigils, work hard, abandon your own people, be despised by a paltry slave, be laughed to scorn by those who meet you, in everything get the worst of it, in honor, in office, in court, in every paltry affair. Look these drawbacks over carefully, if you are willing at the price of these things to secure tranquility, freedom and calm.Otherwise, do not approach philosophy; don't act like a child—now a philosopher, later on a tax-gatherer, then a rhetorician, then a procurator of Caesar. These things do not go together. You must be one person, either good or bad; you must labor to improve either your own governing principle or externals; you must work hard either on the inner man, or on things outside; that is, play either the role of a philosopher or else that of a layman.