AS when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion,
in an ivory or gold box, you do not love
or think it happy on account of the magnificence
of the materials in which it is enclosed, but shun
and detest it because it is of a pernicious nature;
so likewise, when you see vice lodged in the midst
of wealth and the swelling pride of fortune, be not
struck by the splendour of the materials with which
it is surrounded, but despise the base alloy of its
manners.
EPICTETUS. FRAGMENTS. 17.
IS
this then a thing of that worth, that for it my
soul should suffer, and become worse than it
was? as either basely dejected, or disordinately
affected, or confounded within itself, or terrified?
What can there be, that thou shouldst so much
esteem?
MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book viii. 44.
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