4. And thus some men, having seen a philosopher, and heard discourse like that of Euphrates[2] (yet who indeed can say that any discourse is like his?), desire that they also may become philosophers.
5. But, O man! consider first what it is you are about to do, and then inquire of your own nature whether you can carry it out. Will you be a pentathlos,[3] or a wrestler? Then, scan your arms and thighs; try your loins. For different men are made for different ends.
6. Think you, you can be a sage, and continue to eat and drink and be wrathful and take offense just as you were wont? Nay, but you must watch and labor, and withdraw yourself from your household, and be despised by any serving boy, and be ridiculed by your neighbors, and take the lower place everywhere, in honors, in authority, in courts of justice, in dealings of every kind.[4]
7. Consider these things—whether you are willing at such a price to gain peace, freedom, and an untroubled spirit. And if not, then attempt it not, nor, like a child, play now the philosopher, then the tax-gatherer, then the orator, then the Procurator of Cæsar. For these things agree not among themselves; and, good or bad, it behooves you to be one man. You should be perfecting either your own ruling faculty, or your outward well-being; spending your art either on the life within or the life without; that is to say, you must hold your place either among the sages or the vulgar.