Book 3
1
What, then, makes a man beautiful? Is it on the same principle that a dog or a horse is beautiful?
1
The same. What is it, then, that makes a dog beautiful?
1
That excellence which belongs to a dog.
1
What a horse?
1
The excellence of a horse.
1
What a man? Must it not be the excellence belonging to a man? If, then, you would appear beautiful, young man, strive for human excellence.
1
What is that?
1
Consider whom you praise, when unbiassed by partiality; is it the honest or dishonest?
1
The honest.
1
The sober or the dissolute?
1
The sober.
1
The temperate or the intemperate?
1
The temperate.
1
Then, if you make yourself such a character, you know that you will make yourself beautiful; but while you neglect these things, though you use every contrivance to appear beautiful, you must necessarily be deformed.
