BOOK I. XXIII. 5-XXIV. 2
it is no longer in our power not to love it or to care for it. For the same reason Epicurus says that a man of sense does not engage in politics either; for he knows what the man who engages in politics has to do—since, of course, if you are going to live among men as though you were a fly among flies,[1] what is to hinder you? Yet, despite the fact that he knows this, he still has the audacity to say, "Let us not bring up children." But a sheep does not abandon its own offspring, nor a wolf; and yet does a man abandon his? What do you wish us to do? Would you have us be foolish as sheep? But even they do not desert their offspring. Would you have us be fierce as wolves? But even they do not desert their offspring. Come now, who follows your advice when he sees his child fallen on the ground and crying? 10Why, in my opinion, your mother and your father, even if they had divined that you were going to say such things, would not have exposed you!
CHAPTER XXIV
How should we struggle against difficulties?
It is difficulties that show what men are. Consequently, when a difficulty befalls, remember that God, like a physical trainer, has matched you with a rugged young man. What for? some one says. So that you may become an Olympic victor; but that cannot be done without sweat. To my way of thinking no one has got a finer difficulty than the one which you have got, if only you are willing to make use of it as an athlete makes use of a young
- ↑ Since flies have no social organization or relationships, and there is nothing to compel one to live like a man, and not like an unsocial animal, except one's own sense of fitness of things.
