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He has written one volume of lives divided into four books; in the fourth of these he says, that a wise man meddles with no business but his own, and is employed about his own affairs. His words are these: For I am of opinion, that a prudent man shuns affairs, meddles little, and at the same time minds his own occasions; civil persons being both minders of their own affairs and meddlers with little else. He has said almost the same in his book of Things eligible for Themselves, in these very words: For indeed a quiet life seems to have in it a certain security and freedom from danger, though there are not very many who can comprehend it. It is manifest that he does not much dissent from Epicurus, who takes away Providence that he may leave God in repose. But the same Chrysippus in his First Book of Lives says, that a wise man willingly takes upon him a kingdom, making his profit by it; and if he cannot reign himself, will dwell with a king, and go to the wars with such a king as was Hydanthyrsus the Scythian or Leucon the Pontic. But I will here also set down his very discourse, that we may see whether, as from the treble and the base strings there arises a symphony in music, so the life of a man who chooses quietness and meddling with little accords with him who, upon any necessity, rides along with the Scythians and manages the affairs of the tyrants in the Bosphorus: For that a wise man will both go to the wars and live with potentates, we will again consider this hereafter; some indeed upon the like arguments not so much as suspecting this, and we for semblable reasons admitting it. And a little after: Not only with those who have proceeded well, and are become proficients in discipline and good manners, as with Leucon and Hydanthyrsus.
