Personal merit cannot be achieved through our associations with people of excellence. You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, d… - Epictetus

It was thus an excellent reply that the woman made when she wanted to send a boatload of provisions to the exiled Gratilla;* for when someone said to her, ‘Domitian will merely confiscate them,’ she replied, ‘Better that he should take them away than that I should fail to send them.

A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path - he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it to him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.

If you’re writing to a friend, grammar will tell you what letters you ought to choose, but as to whether or not you ought to write to your friend, grammar won’t tell you that.