Lord God, how shall I not be anxious? Fool, have you not hands, did not
God make them for you? Sit down now and pray that your nose may not run.
Wipe yourself rather and do not blame him. Well then, has he given to
you nothing in the present case? Has he not given to you endurance? 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