Yet let them be given with discretion; for what is given carelessly
and recklessly can please no one. Whoever, therefore, supposes that
in giving this advice I wish to restrict benevolence and to confine
it to narrower limits, entirely mistakes the object of my warning.
What virtue do we admire more than benevolence? Which do we
encourage more? Who ought to applaud it more than we Stoics, who
preach the brotherhood of the human race? What then is it? Since no
impulse of the human mind can be approved of, even though it
springs from a right feeling, unless it be made into a virtue by
discretion, I forbid generosity to degenerate into extravagance. It
is, indeed, pleasant to receive a benefit with open arms, when
reason bestows it upon the worthy, not when it is flung hither or
thither thoughtlessly and at random; this alone we care to display
and claim as our own. Can you call anything a benefit, if you feel
ashamed to mention the person who gave it you? How far more
grateful is a benefit, how far more deeply does it impress itself
upon the mind, never to be forgotten, when we rejoice to think not
so much of what it is, as from whom we have received it! Crispus
Passienus was wont to say that some men's advice was to be
preferred to their presents, some men's presents to their advice;
and he added as an example, "I would rather have received advice
from Augustus than a present; I would rather receive a present from
Claudius than advice." I, however, think that one ought not to wish
for a benefit from any man whose judgement is worthless. What then?
Ought we not to receive what Claudius gives? We ought; but we ought
to regard it as obtained from fortune, which may at any moment turn
against us. Why do we separate this which naturally is connected?
That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit, that it
be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of money,
if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is no