28. Consider what a man Socrates was when he dressed himself in a skin, after Xanthippe had taken his cloak and gone out, and what Socrates said to his friends who were ashamed of him and drew back from him when they saw him dressed thus. 29. Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself. Much more is this so in life. 30. A slave thou art: free speech is not for thee. 31. And my heart laughed within. _Odyssey_, IX. 413. 32. And virtue they will curse, speaking harsh words. HESIOD, _Works and Days_, 184. 33. To look for the fig in winter is a madman’s act: such is he who looks for his child when it is no longer allowed (Epictetus, III. 24, 87). 34. When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, “To-morrow perchance thou wilt die.”—But those are words of bad omen.—“No word is a word of bad omen,” said Epictetus, “which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped” (Epictetus, III. 24, 88). 35. The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape all are changes, not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet (Epictetus, III. 24). 36. No man can rob us of our free will (Epictetus III. 22, 105). 37. Epictetus also said, a man must discover an art [or rules] with respect to giving his assent; and in respect to his movements he must be careful that they be made with regard to circumstances, that they be consistent with social interests, that they have regard to the value of the object; and as to sensual desire, he should altogether keep away from it; and as to avoidance [aversion], he should not show it with respect to any of the things which are not in our power. 38. The dispute then, he said, is not about any common matter, but about being mad or not. 39. Socrates used to say, What do you want, souls of rational men or irrational?—souls of rational men.—Of what rational men, sound or unsound?—Sound.—Why then do you not seek for them?—Because we have them.—Why then do you fight and quarrel? BOOK XII.