For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great and
valuable when it is lost, and of no value when we have it.... And yet it
makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the most part at home and
to our own condition; or if not, to look at the case of people worse off
than ourselves, and not, as people do, to compare ourselves with those who
are better off.... But you will find others, Chians, or Galatians, or
Bithynians, not content with the share of glory or power they have among
their fellow-citizens, but weeping because they do not wear senators'
shoes; or, if they have them, that they cannot be praetors of Rome; or if
they get that office, that they are not consuls; or if they are consuls,
that they are only proclaimed second and not first.... Whenever, then, you
admire any one carried by in his litter as a greater man than yourself,
lower your eyes and look at those that bear the litter." And again, "I am
very taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was
dressing with much display for a feast, 'Does not a good man consider
every day a feast?' .
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