1. But if even Epicurus, who most of all indulged the flesh, is up in arms against injury, how can such an attitude on our part seem incredible or to be beyond the bounds of human nature? He says that injuries are tolerable for the wise man; we say that injuries do not exist for him. Nor, indeed, is there any reason why you should claim that this wars against nature. 2. We do not deny that it is an unpleasant thing to be beaten and hit, to lose some bodily member, but we deny that all such things are injuries. We do not divest them of the sensation of pain, but of the name of injury, which is not allowable so long as virtue is unharmed. Which of the two speaks more truly we will consider: as to contempt, at any rate, for injury both think alike. Do you ask, then, what is the difference between the two? The same difference that distinguishes two gladiators, both very brave, one of whom stops his wound and stands his ground, the other, turning to the shouting crowd, makes a sign that he has no wound, and permits no interference. 3. There is no need for you to suppose that our difference is great; as to the point, and it is the only one that concerns you, both schools urge you to scorn injuries and, what I may call the shadows and suggestions of injuries, insults. And one does not need to be a wise man to despise these, but merely a man of sense — one who can say to himself: “Do I, or do I not, deserve that these things befall me? If I do deserve them, there is no insult — it is justice; if I do not deserve them, he who does the injustice is the one to blush.” 4. And this insult, so called, what is it? Some jest at the baldness of my head, the weakness of my eyes, the thinness of my legs, my build. But why is it an insult to be told what is self-evident? Something is said in the presence of only one person and we laugh; if several are present, we become indignant, and we do not allow others the liberty of saying the very things that we are in the habit of saying about ourselves. Jests, if restrained, amuse us; if unrestrained, they make us angry.