Fragments (A.11-A.15)

As you would not wish to sail in a large and elegant and gilded ship, and sink; so neither is it desirable to inhabit a grand and sumptuous house, and be in a tumult.

When we are invited to an entertainment we take what we find; and if any one should bid the master of the house set fish or tarts before him, he would be thought absurd. Yet in the world we ask the gods

They are pretty fellows indeed, said he, who value themselves on things not in our own power. I am a better man than you, says one; for I have many estates, and you are pining with hunger. I have been consul, says another; I am a ruler, says a third; and I have a fine head of hair, says a fourth. Yet one horse does not say to another, I am better than you, for I have a great deal of hay and a great deal of oats, and I have a gold bridle and embroidered trappings; but only, I am swifter than you. And every creature is better or worse from its own good or bad qualities. Is man, then, the only creature which has no natural good quality? And must we take account of hair and clothes and ancestors?

Patients are displeased with a physician who does not prescribe to them; and think he gives them over. And why are none so affected towards a philosopher as to conclude that he despairs of their recovery to a right way of thinking, if he tells them nothing for their good?

They who have a good constitution of body can bear heat and cold; and so they who have a right