Plutarch, De tranquilitate animi
W. C. Helmbold, Ed.

Now he¹ who said, ‘The man who would be tranquil in his mind must not engage in many affairs, either private or public,’ first of all makes our tranquillity very expensive if it is bought at the price of inactivity ; it is as though he advised every sick man :

Lie still, poor wretch, and move not from your bed.²

And yet it is true that a state of bodily stupor is a bad remedy for insanity ; but no whit better as a physician of the soul is he who would relieve it of its disturbances and distress by prescribing idleness and softness and the betrayal of friends and family and country.³

In the next place, it is also false that those who are not occupied with many things are tranquil in mind. For if that were true, women ought to be more tranquil than men, since for the most part they keep at home ; but as it is, the North Wind

Blows not through the soft-skinned maid,

as Hesiod⁴ says, yet more pain and excitement and despondency than one could enumerate, caused by jealousy and superstitition and ambition and vain [p. 173] imaginings, seep into the women's quarters. And though Laërtes⁵ lived twenty years by himself in the country

With one old woman, who his food and drink
Would place beside him,

and abandoned his birthplace,⁶ his home, and his kingship, yet he had grief as an ever-constant companion of his inactivity and dejection. And for some persons, even inactivity itself often leads to discontent, as in this instance :

The swift Achilles, Peleus' noble son,
Continued in his wrath beside the ships ;
Nor would he ever go to council that
Ennobles men, nor ever go to war,
But wasted away his heart, remaining there,
And always longed for tumult and for war.⁷

And he himself is greatly disturbed and distressed at this and says : But here I sit beside my ships,
A useless burden to the earth.⁸ For this reason not even Epicurus⁹ believes that men who are eager for honour and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfil their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire. But he is absurd in urging public life, not on those who are able to undertake it, but on those who are unable [p. 175] to lead an inactive life ; tranquillity and discontent should be determined, not by the multitude or the fewness of one's occupations, but by their excellence or baseness ; for the omission of good acts is no less vexatious and disturbing than the commission of evil acts, as has been said.¹⁰