superior to everything else that all other things which are looked upon
as the gifts of fortune, or the good things of the body, seem trifling
and insignificant; and no evil whatever, nor all the collective body of
evils together, appears to be compared to the evil of infamy.
Wherefore, if, as you granted in the beginning, infamy is worse than
pain, pain is certainly nothing; for while it appears to you base and
unmanly to groan, cry out, lament, or faint under pain; while you
cherish notions of probity, dignity, honor, and, keeping your eye on
them, refrain yourself, pain will certainly yield to virtue, and, by
the influence of imagination, will lose its whole force.--For you must
either admit that there is no such thing as virtue, or you must despise
every kind of pain. Will you allow of such a virtue as prudence,
without which no virtue whatever can even be conceived? What, then?
Will that suffer you to labor and take pains to no purpose? Will
temperance permit you to do anything to excess? Will it be possible for
justice to be maintained by one who through the force of pain discovers
secrets, or betrays his confederates, or deserts many duties of life?
Will you act in a manner consistently with courage, and its attendants,
greatness of soul, resolution, patience, and contempt for all worldly
things? Can you hear yourself called a great man when you lie
grovelling, dejected, and deploring your condition with a lamentable
voice; no one would call you even a man while in such a condition. You
must therefore either abandon all pretensions to courage, or else pain
must be put out of the question.

XIV. You know very well that, even though part of your Corinthian
furniture were gone, the remainder might be safe without that; but if
you lose one virtue (though virtue in reality cannot be lost), still
if, I say, you should acknowledge that you were deficient in one, you
would be stripped of all. Can you, then, call yourself a brave man, of