13
If you want to get better, let yourself seem foolish and uncaring about externals. Don’t try to seem knowledgeable. If anyone thinks you’re important, you’re doing it wrong.
It’s difficult to keep your will on track and simultaneously go after external things. Take care of one and you’ll surely neglect the other.
GPT translation
"If you wish to make progress [in moral and philosophical development, specifically in achieving personal virtue and wisdom], endure to appear foolish and ignorant about external things, and do not wish to seem knowledgeable: and if it appears to some that you are someone, distrust yourself.
Know that it is not easy to maintain your own choice according to nature and attend to external things as well; neglecting one is necessarily linked to caring for the other."
From Ancient Greek
εἰ προκόψαι θέλεις, ὑπόμεινον ἕνεκα τῶν ἐκτὸς ἀνόητος δόξας καὶ ἠλίθιος, μηδὲν βούλου δοκεῖν ἐπίστασθαι: κἂν δόξῃς τις εἶναί τισιν, ἀπίστει σεαυτῷ. ἴσθι γὰρ ὅτι οὐ ῥᾴδιον τὴν προαίρεσιν τὴν σεαυτοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ἔχουσαν φυλάξαι καὶ τὰ ἐκτός, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου ἐπιμελούμενον τοῦ ἑτέρου ἀμελῆσαι πᾶσα ἀνάγκη.
Backlinks