" He implied by this answer
that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act
always on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_.
"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off."
"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not
care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the
purple sewn upon it."
And if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will
supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward
approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your
own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato
says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of
the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even
rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live
according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the
living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery
over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious
victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place
him to Hercules himself.
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