Discourses: Book 1 29 : 6

All this a man ought to remember, and when he is summoned to meet some such difficulty, he ought to know that the time has come to show whether we are educated. For a young man leaving school and facing a difficulty is like one who has practised the analysis of syllogisms, and if someone propounds him one that is easy to solve, he says, "Nay, rather propound me one that is cunningly involved, so that I may get exercise from it." Also the athletes are displeased with the youths of light weight: "He cannot lift me," says one. "Yonder is a sturdy young man." Oh no; but when the crisis calls, he has to weep and say, "I wanted to keep on learning." Learning what? If you do not learn these things so as to be able to manifest them in action, what did you learn them for? I fancy that someone among these who are sitting here is in travail within his own soul and is saying, "Alas, that such a difficulty does not come to me now as that which has come to this fellow! Alas, that now I must be worn out sitting in a corner, when I might be crowned at Olympia! When will someone bring me word of such a contest?" You ought all to be thus minded. But among the gladiators of Caesar there are some who complain because no one brings them out, or matches them with an antagonist, and they pray God and go to their managers, begging to fight in single combat; and yet will no one of you display a like spirit? I wanted to sail to Rome for this very purpose and to see what my athlete is doing, what practice he is following in his task. "I do not want," says he, "this kind of a task." What, is it in your power to take any task you want? You have been given such a body, such parents, such brothers, such a country, such a position in it; and then do you come to me and say, "Change the task for me"? What, do you not possess resources to enable you to utilize that which has been given? You ought to say, "It is yours to set the task, mine to practise it well." No, but you do say, "Do not propose to me such-and-such a hypothetical syllogism, but rather such-and-such a one; do not urge upon me such-and-such a conclusion, but rather such-and-such a one." A time will soon come when the tragic actors will think that their masks and buskins and the long robe are themselves. Man, all these things you have as a subject-matter and a task. Say something, so that we may know whether you are a tragic actor or a buffoon; for both of these have everything but their lines in common. Therefore, if one should take away from him both his buskins and his mask, and bring him on the stage as a mere shade of an actor, is the tragic actor lost, or does he abide? If he has a voice, he abides.