To Demonicus (46-50)

But most of all would you be spurred on to strive for noble deeds if you should realize that it is from them most of all that we also derive pleasure in the true sense. For while the result of indolence and love of surfeit is that pain follows on the heels of pleasure,[*] on the other hand, devoted toil in the pursuit of virtue, and self-control in the ordering of one’s life always yield delights that are pure and more abiding. In the former case we experience pain following upon pleasure, in the latter we enjoy pleasure after pain.

In all our tasks we are not so much mindful of the beginning as we are sensible of the end; for we do most things in life not for themselves; it is rather for the sake of what results from them that we carry on our labors.

Bear in mind that while the base may be pardoned for acting without principle, since it is on such a foundation that from the first their lives have been built, yet the good may not neglect virtue without subjecting themselves to rebukes from many quarters; for all men despise less those who do wrong than those who have claimed to be respect able and yet are in fact no better than the common run;

and rightly, too, for when we condemn those who deceive us in words alone, how, pray, can we deny the baseness of those who in their whole lives belie their promise?[*] We should be right in judging that such men not only sin against themselves, but are traitors to fortune as well; for fortune places in their hands wealth and reputation and friends, but they, for their part, make themselves unworthy of the blessings which lie within their grasp.

And if a mortal may make conjecture of the thoughts of the gods, I think that they also have revealed very clearly in their treatment of their nearest kin how they are disposed to the good and base among men. For Zeus, who, as the myths relate and all men believe, was the father of Heracles and Tantalus, made the one immortal because of his virtue, and inflicted on the other the severest punishments because of his evil character.