Discourses: Book 3 20 : 1

In the case of our intellectual impressions practically all men have agreed that the good and the evil are in ourselves, and not in externals. Nobody calls the statement that it is day, good, or that it is night, bad, and the greatest of evils, the statement that three is four. But what? They call knowledge good, and error evil; so that even in regard to what is false there arises a good, that is, the knowledge that the false is false. So it ought to be, then, also with our life. Is health a good, and illness an evil? No, man. What then? To be well for a good end is good, to be well for an evil end is evil.—So that it is possible to derive advantage even from illness, you mean?—Why, I call God to witness, isn't it possible to derive advantage from death? Why, isn't it possible from lameness? Do you think that Menoeceus derived but little good when he died?—May the one who says anything like that derive the same sort of good that he did!—Ho, there, man, did he not maintain the patriot that he was, the high-minded man, the man of fidelity, the man of honour? And had he lived on, would he not have lost all these? Would he not have won the very opposite? Would he not have acquired the character of the coward, the ignoble man, the disloyal, the lover of his own life? Come now, do you think that Menoeceus derived but little good by his death? Oh, no! But the father of Admetus derived great good from living so ignobly and wretchedly, did he? Why, didn't he die later? Make an end, I adjure you by the gods, of admiring material things, make an end of turning yourselves into slaves, in the first place, of things, and then, in the second place, on their account, slaves also of the men who are able to secure or to take away these things.