But the kind of affliction of which I have treated is that which is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for the others.

For there are certain things which are usually said about poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and undistinguished life.

There are particular treatises on banishment, on the ruin of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and on every incident that can come under the name of an evil.

The Greeks divide these into different treatises and distinct books; but they do it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are full of entertainment.

And yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general; still, if any other deficiency exists--should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear, there is for each its appropriate consolation, which you shall hear whenever you please.