Never injure a friend, even in jest. - Cicero

Osons non seulement couper les branches de nos malheurs, mais arracher tous les filaments de leurs racines. Peut-être pourtant en restera-t-il quelque chose, tellement sont profondes les souches de la déraison ; mais il ne restera que le nécessaire. Ainsi tiens pour certains que, si l'âme ne guérit pas (ce qui est impossible sans la philosophie), il n'y aura pas de fins à nos misères. Aussi, puisque nous avons commencé, confions-nous à elle pour être soignés ; nous guérirons si nous le voulons.

A: For what stronger proof can there be of its [philosophy's] uselessness than that some accomplished philosophers lead disgraceful lives?
M: It is no proof at all; for as all cultivated fields are not harvest-yielding [...] so all cultivated minds do not bear fruit. To continue the figure – as a field, though fertile, cannot yield a harvest without cultivation, no more can the mind without learning; thus each is feeble without the other. But philosophy is the cultivation of the soul. It draws out vices by the root, prepares the mind to receive seed, and commits to it, and, so to speak, sows in it what, when grown, may bear the most abundant fruit.

Philosophy is certainly the medicine of the soul. Its aid is to be sought not from without, as in diseases of the body; and we must labour with all our resources and with all our strength to cure ourselves.