1Although, Scaeva, you take care enough of yourself on your own and know in what way at last it is fitting to deal with the great, learn what your humble friend, who still needs teaching himself, thinks, as if a blind man should wish to show the way; 4yet see whether I too may say anything you might care to make your own. 6If pleasant rest and sleep till the first hour delight you, if dust and the din of wheels, if the tavern annoys you, I shall bid you go to Ferentinum; for joys do not fall to the rich alone, nor has he lived badly who from birth to death has passed unnoticed.
11If you want to benefit your family and treat yourself a little more generously, you will go, a dry man, to one well oiled. 13'If Aristippus could patiently lunch on vegetables, he would not want to associate with kings.' 14'If he who criticises me knew how to associate with kings, he would turn up his nose at vegetables.' 15Tell me which of these men's words and deeds you approve, or, as the younger, hear why Aristippus' view is better; for this, they say, is how he dodged the snapping Cynic: 'I play the buffoon for my own benefit, you for the people's; 19this is more right and much more splendid.
20I do my duty so that a horse may carry me and a king feed me; 21you beg for cheap things, but are lower than the giver, though you claim to need no one.' 23Every colour, condition and circumstance suited Aristippus, who aimed at greater things but was mostly content with what he had; but as for the man whom endurance clothes in a doubled rag, I shall be amazed if a change in his way of life suits him. 27The one will not wait for a purple cloak, will go through the busiest places dressed in anything, and will play either part not without grace; 30the other will shun a cloak woven at Miletus worse than a dog or a snake, and will die of cold if you do not give him back his rag.
32Give it back, and let him live his foolish life. 33To achieve great deeds and display captured enemies to one's fellow citizens touches the throne of Jupiter and reaches for the heavens: to have pleased leading men is not the least of praise. 36It is not every man's lot to get to Corinth. 37He who feared he would not succeed sat still. 37'So be it. 38What of him who got there? Did he act like a man?' 38And yet here or nowhere is what we are seeking. This one shudders at the burden, as too great for small minds and a small body; 41that one takes it up and carries it through. Either virtue is an empty name, or the man who makes the attempt rightly seeks honour and reward.
43Those who keep silent before their patron about their poverty will get more than the one who asks: it makes a difference whether you take modestly or snatch; 45and yet this was the head and source of the matter. 46'My sister has no dowry, my mother is poor, and my farm can neither be sold nor keep us': he who says this is crying out, 'Give me food!' 48Another chimes in, 'And me!' 49The loaf will be split into shares; but if the crow could feed in silence, it would have more of the feast and much less quarrelling and envy. 52He who, taken as companion to Brundisium or lovely Surrentum, complains of the bumpy roads and the bitter cold and the rains, or bewails his box broken open and his travel money stolen, repeats the well-known tricks of the harlot who often weeps for a necklace, often for an anklet stolen from her, so that soon no belief is given to her real losses and grief. Nor does one who has once been fooled care to lift up at the crossroads a quack with a broken leg, though many a tear flows from him, though, swearing by holy Osiris, he says: 'Believe me, I'm not joking; 61cruel people, lift up the lame man!' 62'Look for a stranger,' the hoarse neighbourhood shouts back.