In he morn­ing when thou risest un­will­ingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to the work of a hu­man be­ing. Why then am I dis­sat­is­fied if I am go­ing to do the things for which I ex­ist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed­clothes and keep my­self warm?—But this is more pleas­ant.—Dost thou ex­ist then to take thy pleas­ure, and not at all for ac­tion or ex­er­tion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees work­ing to­gether to put in or­der their sev­eral parts of the uni­verse? And art thou un­will­ing to do the work of a hu­man be­ing, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is ac­cord­ing to thy nature?—But it is ne­ces­sary to take rest also.—It is ne­ces­sary: how­ever nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed bounds both to eat­ing and drink­ing, and yet thou goest bey­ond these bounds, bey­ond what is suf­fi­cient; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thy­self, for if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who love their sev­eral arts ex­haust them­selves in work­ing at them un­washed and without food; but thou val­uest thy own own nature less than the turner val­ues the turn­ing art, or the dan­cer the dan­cing art, or the lover of money val­ues his money, or the vain­glori­ous man his little glory. And such men, when they have a vi­ol­ent af­fec­tion to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep rather than to per­fect the things which they care for. But are the acts which con­cern so­ci­ety more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy la­bour?