Book 2
2
For this reason it is absurd to call upon me for specific advice. How should I know what to advise you? Ask me rather to teach you to accommodate yourself to whatever may be the event. The former is just as if an illiterate person should say; Tell me how to write down some name that is proposed to me; and I show him how to write the name of Dion; and then another comes, and asks him to write the name, not of Dion, but of Theon. What will be the consequence? What will he write? Whereas, if you make writing your study, you are ready prepared for whatever word may occur; if not, how can I advise you? For if the actual case should suggest something else, what will you say, or how will you act? Remember, then, the general rule, and you will need no special suggestions; but if you are absorbed in externals, you must necessarily be tossed up and down, according to the inclination of your master.
2
Who is your master? Whosoever controls those things which you seek or shun.
Concerning such as recommend persons to the philosophers.
