Discourses: Book 1 19 : 1

If a man possesses some superiority, or thinks at least that he does, even though he does not, it is quite unavoidable that this man, if he is uneducated, becomes puffed up on account of it. For example, the tyrant exclaims, "I am the mightiest in the world." Very well, what can you do for me? Can you secure for me desire that is free from any hindrance? How can you? Do you have it yourself? Can you secure for me aversion proof against encountering what it would avoid? Do you have it yourself? Or infallible choice? And where can you claim a share in that? Come, when you are on board ship, do you feel confidence in yourself, or in the skilled navigator? And when you are in a chariot, in whom do you feel confidence other than the skilled driver. And how is it in the other arts? The same way. What does your power amount to, then? "All men pay attention to me." Yes, and I pay attention to my little plate and wash it and wipe it out, and for the sake of my oil-flask I drive a peg in the wall. What follows, then? Are these things superior to me? No, but they render me some service, and therefore I pay attention to them. Again, do I not pay attention to my donkey? Do I not wash his feet? Do I not curry him? Do you not know that every man pays attention to himself, and to you just as he does to his donkey? For who pays attention to you as to a man? Point him out to me. Who wishes to become like you? Who becomes a zealous follower of yours as men did of Socrates? "But I can cut off your head." Well said! I had forgotten that I ought to pay attention to you, as to fever or cholera, and set up an altar to you, just as in Rome there is an altar to the God Fever.