1Someone will say: 'So this is your teaching? 1is this how you train young men? 1was it for this reason that his father entrusted this boy to you and handed him over, that he might spend his youth in love affairs and pleasures, and that you might defend this way of life and these pursuits?' 1For my part, judges, if anyone has had such strength of mind and such a nature of virtue and self-restraint that he spurned all pleasures and passed the whole course of his life in toil of body and in exertion of mind, a man whom neither rest, nor relaxation, nor the pursuits of his contemporaries, nor games, nor banquets delighted, who thought nothing in life worth seeking except what was joined with praise and with honour, that man, in my opinion, I consider equipped and adorned with blessings that are almost divine.
1Of this kind, I believe, were those men like Camillus, Fabricius and Curius, and all those who made these great things out of the very smallest. 40But these kinds of virtue are found not only no longer in our way of life but scarcely even in books now. 40The pages, too, which contained that old-time strictness have fallen out of use; 40and not only among us, who have followed this school and system of life in deed rather than in words, but also among the Greeks, most learned men, who, though they could not act, were still able to speak and write honourably and grandly, certain different precepts arose when the times of Greece had changed.
41And so some said that wise men do everything for the sake of pleasure, and learned men did not shrink from this disgraceful doctrine; 41others thought that honour should be joined with pleasure, so that by their skill in speaking they might join things most opposed to each other; 41those who approved that one straight road to glory with toil are now left almost alone in their lecture-halls. 41For nature herself has produced for us many enticements, by which virtue may at times be lulled to sleep and close its eyes; 41she has shown youth many slippery paths, on which it could scarcely stand or walk without some fall or stumble; 41she has given a variety of very many delightful things, by which not only this age but even one already hardened may be captured.
42Therefore if you happen to find anyone who scorns with his eyes the beauty of things, who is captured by no scent, no touch, no taste, who shuts out all sweetness from his ears, I perhaps and a few others will think that this man has the gods on his side, but most will think them angry with him.