It is base to hate a man who commands your praise, but how much baser to hate anyone for the very reason that he deserves your pity. If a captive, suddenly reduced to servitude, still retains some traces of his freedom and does not run nimbly to mean and toilsome tasks, if sluggish from inaction he does not keep pace with the speed of his master’s horse and carriage, if worn out by his daily vigils he yields to sleep, if when transferred to hard labor from service in the city with its many holidays he either refuses the toll of the farm or does not enter into it with energy — in such cases let us discriminate, asking whether he cannot or will not serve. We shall acquit many if we begin with discernment instead of with anger. But as it is, we obey our first impulse; then, although we have been aroused by mere trifles, we continue to be angry for fear that we may seem to have had no reason to be so from the first, and — what is most unjust — the very injustice of our anger makes us the more obstinate. For we hold on to it and nurse it, as if the violence of our anger were proof of its justice.