Discourses: Book 4 7 : 6

Oh yes, but statements like these make men despise the laws.—Quite the contrary, what statements other than these make the men who follow them more ready to obey the laws? Law is not simply anything that is in the power of a fool. And yet see how these statements make us behave properly even toward these fools, because they teach us to claim against such persons nothing in which they can surpass us. They teach us to give way when it comes to our paltry body, to give way when it comes to our property, to our children, parents, brothers, to retire from everything, let everything go; they except only our judgements, and it was the will of Zeus also that these should be each man's special possession. What do you mean by speaking of lawlessness and stupidity here? Where you are superior and stronger, there I give way to you; and again, where I am superior, you retire in favour of me. For I have made these matters my concern, and you have not. It is your concern how to live in marble halls, and further, how slaves and freedmen are to serve you, how you are to wear conspicuous clothing, how to have many hunting dogs, citharoedes, and tragedians. I do not lay claim to any of these, do I? You, then, have never concerned yourself with judgements, have you? Or with your own reason, have you? You do not know, do you, what are its constituent parts, how it is composed, what its arrangement is, what faculties it has, and what their nature is? Why, then, are you disturbed if someone else, the man, namely, who has concerned himself with these matters, has the advantage of you therein?—But these are the most important things that there are.—And who is there to prevent you from concerning yourself with these matters, and devoting your attention to them? And who is better provided with books, leisure, and persons to help you? Only begin some time to turn your mind to these matters; devote a little time, if no more, to your own governing principle; consider what this thing is which you possess, and where it has come from, the thing which utilizes everything else, submits everything else to the test, selects, and rejects. But so long as you concern yourself with externals, you will possess them in a way that no one else can match, but you will have this governing faculty in the state in which you want to have it, that is, dirty and neglected.