Musonius Rufus, Fragments 36

And further, of the notable sayings of Musonius that come to my mind, this is one, Sulla, that those who want to be in health should spend their lives taking care of themselves. 

 

For unlike the hellebore plant, reason should not be cast forth with the illness after it has affected a cure, but it should be allowed to remain in the soul to keep and guard the judgment.

 

 For the power of reason should not be compared to drugs but to health-giving foods, since it introduces a good and healthy frame of mind into those to whom it becomes habitual. 

 

On the other hand admonitions and warnings made when the emotions are at their greatest heat barely have any effect at all. They are not unlike those scents that revive people who have fallen in a fit but do not cure the disease.

 

The Greeks and Romans had their own medicines, usually taken from nature, and we have our own medicines, usually brewed up in a corporate laboratory. Some will work, and some won’t; I’m not so sure the odds have really gotten any better or any worse. 

 

Maybe part of our universal problem is that we only look for a remedy after we start feeling sick, instead of nurturing ourselves at all times, keeping both body and mind healthy on an ordinary day, so that we might then prepare ourselves for that extraordinary day. 

 

It was only after I found myself ill that I understood what they had long been telling me, that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

 

This applies to my moral health all the more than to my physical health, as the latter only exists for the sake of the former. This means that I must attend to the habits of a sound mind recommended by the philosophers, with an even greater conviction than the habits of a sound body recommended by the physicians. 

 

It will be a burden if my flesh fails me because I have not chosen to eat and exercise properly; it will be a total obstacle to my happiness if I have not chosen to live with wisdom and virtue. 

 

The constant cultivation of my judgment is required, and having a change of heart well after the fact will be of little consolation. All the reminders and good advice will fall on deaf ears once I have already surrendered to lust, greed, and rage, once I have already made that crippling choice.