1For just as the human race is composed of body and soul, so all our affairs and all our pursuits follow the nature, some of the body, others of the mind. 1Therefore striking beauty, great riches, and besides these bodily strength and all other things of this kind soon fade away; 2but the outstanding achievements of the intellect are immortal, like the soul. 3Finally, the goods of the body and of fortune have an end just as they have a beginning, and all things that have risen set, and all that have grown grow old: the mind, incorruptible and eternal, ruler of the human race, drives and possesses all things and is not itself possessed.
4All the more, then, is the perversity of those to be wondered at who, given over to the delights of the body, spend their lives in luxury and idleness, but allow their intellect, than which there is nothing better or nobler in the nature of mortals, to grow dull through neglect and sloth, especially when there are so many and such varied arts of the mind by which the highest renown is won.