“You talk one way, you live another,” you say. The same reproach, O ye creatures most spiteful, most hostile to all the best of men, has been made against Plato, against Epicurus, against Zeno; for all these told, not how they themselves were living, but how they ought to live. It is of virtue, not of myself, that I am speaking, and my quarrel is against all vices, more especially against my own. When I shall be able, I shall live as I ought. And your spitefulness, deep-dyed with venom, shall not deter me from what is best, nor shall even this poison with which you besprinkle others, with which, too, you are killing yourselves, hinder me from continuing to vaunt the life, not that I lead, but that I know ought to be led — from worshiping virtue and from following her, albeit a long way behind and with very halting pace. Am I, in sooth, to expect that spite will spare anything when it held neither Rutilius nor Cato [27] sacred? Should anyone be concerned whether he seems too rich in the eyes of those to whom Demetrius the Cynic [28] seems not poor enough? This boldest of heroes, fighting against all the desires of nature, and poorer than the rest of the Cynics in that, while they banned possessions, he banned even the desire of them — this man they say has not enough poverty! But you see — he has not professed a knowledge of virtue but of poverty.