Exhortation to Philosophy (Protrepticus)

so that we are not delivered up to any ignoble outrage of the soul. [On the fellowship of life and constancy.] One should trust in virtue as in a prudent wife, but in fortune as in an unstable mistress. It is better to choose virtue with poverty than wealth with vice, and to choose a meager diet with health rather than gluttony with disease. An abundance of food is especially harmful to one who is physically ill, just as an abundance of possessions is harmful to one who is in a poor state of soul. It is as dangerous and similar to a madman, to give a sword to one who is base, or power to one who is wicked. Just as it is better for one who is festering original: "ἐμπύῳ" to be cauterized than to remain as he is, it is better for the wicked to die than to live. One should enjoy the theorems of wisdom as much as possible, just as one enjoys ambrosia and nectar; for the pleasure derived from them is uncorrupted, and it is able to make one original: "τὸ θεῖον τὸ μεγαλόψυχον" divine and magnanimous, and if not immortal, at least knowledgeable of immortal things. If sense perception is desirable, then prudence phronesis practical wisdom is more to be sought; for it is, as it were, a sense perception of the practical intellect nous mind/intellect within us; for through the former, we are not aware of what we suffer, but through the latter, we do not ignore what we do.