Book 7
3
Types of obstinacy are the opinionated, the stupid, and the boorish. The motives of the opinionated are pleasure and pain: the agreeable sense of victory in not being persuaded to change their minds, and the annoyance of having the decrees of their sovereign will and pleasure annulled. Hence they really resemble the unrestrained more than the restrained.
4
And there are some who fail to abide by their resolves from some other cause than lack of self-restraint, for instance, NeoptolemusCf. 2.7. in thePhiIoctetesof Sophocles. It is true that his motive for changing was pleasure, though a noble pleasure, since it was pleasantThe mss., instead of pleasant, repeat noble by a slip. for him to speak the truth, and he had only told a lie at the instigation of Odysseus. In fact, not everyone whose conduct is guided by pleasure is either profligate and base, or unrestrained, but only those who yield to disgraceful pleasures.
