1Do you know those people who, though slaves of every passion, are as angry at the vices of others as if they envied them, and punish most severely those whom they most imitate? 1when nothing becomes even those who need no one's clemency so well as gentleness. 2For my part, I think the best and most faultless man is he who forgives others as though he himself did wrong every day, and abstains from wrongdoing as though he forgave no one. 3So let us hold to this at home, abroad and in every kind of life: to be implacable towards ourselves, and open to entreaty even towards those who know how to pardon no one but themselves, and let us commit to memory what Thrasea, a most gentle man and for that reason too a very great one, used often to say: 'He who hates vices hates men.' 3You ask, perhaps, what has moved me to write this.
4Recently a certain man — but better face to face; 4though not even then. 4For I fear that attacking, picking at and reporting what I disapprove of may conflict with what we are so strongly recommending. 4Whoever he is, whatever he is like, let him go unmentioned; to mark him out matters nothing as an example, not to mark him out matters a great deal as a matter of kindness. 4Farewell.