“What then,” you say, “is the difference between you, the wise man, and me, the fool, if we both wish to have riches?” The very greatest; for in the eyes of a wise man riches are a slave, in the eyes of fools a master [49]; the wise man grants no importance to riches, to you riches are everything. You accustom yourself to them and cling to them just as if someone had assured you that they would be a lasting possession; the wise man never reflects so much upon poverty as when he abides in the midst of riches. No general ever trusts so wholly to peace as to fail to make ready for a war that has been declared, even if it is not yet being waged. As for you, a beautiful house makes you arrogant, just as if it could never be burned or tumble down; you are stupefied by your wealth, just as if it had escaped every risk and had become so great that Fortune had lost all power to destroy it. Idly you play with your riches, and do not descry the danger they are in — you are like the barbarians who, usually, when they are blockaded, having no knowledge of the engines of war, watch with indifference the effort of the besiegers, and do not surmise the purpose of the constructions that are being erected afar. So it is with you; you loll in the midst of your possessions, and give no heed to the many disasters that threaten from every side and all too soon will carry off the costly spoils. But the wise man — whoever steals away his riches will still leave to him all that is his own [50]; for he ever lives happy in the present and unconcerned about the future.
“Upon nothing,” says a Socrates, or any other who has like authority and like ability to cope with human affairs, “am I more strongly resolved than not to change my course of life to suit your opinion. Heap upon me from every side the usual taunts; I shall not consider that you are railing at me, but that you are wailing like poor little babies.” These will be the words of him who has found wisdom, whose soul, free from all vices, bids him chide others, not because he hates them, but in order to cure them. And, too, he will add others: “Your opinion of me moves me, not on my own account, but on yours; for to hate and to assail virtue with your outcry, is to disavow the hope of being good. You do me no harm, but neither do men harm the gods when they overturn their altars. But evil intention and an evil purpose are apparent even where there has been no power to harm. I put up with your babblings even as Jupiter Greatest and Best puts up with the silly fancies of the poets, one of whom gives to him wings, another horns, another pictures him as the great adulterer staying out all night [51], another as cruel toward the gods, [52] another as unjust toward men, another as the ravisher of freeborn youths [53] and even of his kinsmen, another as a parricide and usurper of another’s throne — his own father’s too. All that they have accomplished is that men are relieved of shame at doing wrong if they believe that the gods are such. But although your words do me no harm, nevertheless for your own sake I proffer advice. Have respect for virtue, give credence to those who, having long pursued her, proclaim that they themselves are pursuing something that is great and that every day seems greater, and do you reverence her as you do the gods, and her exponents as the priests of the gods, and whenever any mention is made of sacred writings, ‘be favorable with your tongues.’ [54]” This expression is not derived, as very many imagine, from “favor” in the sense of “applause,” but enjoins silence in order that sacrifice may be performed according to ritual without the interruption of an ill-omened word. But it is far more necessary that you lay this command upon yourself, in order that, whenever utterance is delivered from that oracle, you may listen with attentive ear and hushed voice. Whenever someone, shaking the rattle, [55] pretends to speak with authority, whenever someone dexterous in slashing his muscles makes bloody his arms and his shoulders with light hand, whenever some woman howls as she creeps along the street on her knees, and an old man, clad in linen and carrying a lamp in broad daylight and a branch of laurel, cries out that some one of the gods is angry, you gather in a crowd and give ear and, fostering each other’s dumb amazement, affirm that he is divine!