Book 4
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When you cease to take pains for a little while, do not fancy that you may recommence whenever you please; but remember this, that by means of the fault of to-day, your affairs must necessarily be in a worse condition for the future. The first and worst evil is that there arises a habit of neglect; and then a habit of postponing effort, and constantly procrastinating as to one’s successes and good behavior and orderly thought and action. Now, if procrastination as to anything is advantageous, it must be still more advantageous to omit it altogether; but if it be not advantageous, why do you not take pains all the time? would play to-day. What then? Ought you not to take proper pains about it? would sing. But why not take proper pains about it? For there is no part of life exempted, about which pains are not needed. For will you do anything the worse by taking pains, and the better by neglect? What else in life is best performed by heedless people? Does a smith forge the better by heedlessness? Does a pilot steer more safely by heedlessness? Or is any other, even of the minutest operations, best performed heedlessly? Do you not perceive that, when you have let your mind loose, it is no longer in your power to call it back, either to propriety, or modesty, or moderation? But you do everything at haphazard; you merely follow your inclinations.
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To what, then, am I to direct my pains?
