Miscellanies 6.9.79

And in matters of understanding, being alone truly understanding, he will excel and will champion the account of the good, always devoted to intelligible things, copying from those archetypes above his management of human affairs, as sailors steer the ship by the star; ready and prepared for every fitting action; accustomed to disregard all that is troublesome and terrible when he must endure it; never doing anything rash or out of harmony either for himself or for the community; foreseeing, and unbending to pleasures, whether waking or in dreams. For, accustomed with self-restraint to a frugal diet and self-sufficiency, he is simple and dignified, needing few necessities for living, busying himself with nothing superfluous; and even these he does not treat as primary, but accepts them, as far as necessary, from the fellowship of life, as needed for his sojourn in the flesh. For knowledge is primary for him.