The Erotic Essay

Accordingly, I shall leave this topic and now endeavor to counsel you on the means of rendering your life still more worthy of esteem. To the words I am about to utter I would not have you give heed as to a matter of trivial importance, nor to leap to the conclusion that I have, after all, addressed you thus, not for your good, but from a desire to display my skill; otherwise you may miss the truth and, by choosing haphazard counsel in place of the best, fall short of the best in judging your own interests.

For we do not reproach men of humble and insignificant natural gifts even when they commit a dishonorable act, but to those who, like yourself, have attained distinction, even a bit of negligence in some matter of high honor brings disgrace.[*](See note on Dem. 61.32) Again, those who go astray in other domains fail merely t make the best decision in some single, isolated matter, but those who miss the right advice on the conduct of life, or scorn it, have reminders of their own folly to live with their whole life long.

Now you must not fall into any of these errors but rather seek to discover what is of supreme consequence in human affairs, and what it is that turning out well would do us the most good, but turning out badly would hurt us most along life’s pathway. For it requires no proof that upon this factor we must expend the greatest care, which more than anything else possesses the power to tip the scale to one side or the other.