How long will you still delay to hold yourself worthy of the best things, and to transgress in nothing the defining word? You have accepted the maxims by which you ought to live, and do you live by them? What teacher do you still look for, to whom to hand over the task of your correction? You are no longer a boy, but now a full grown man. If, then,you are neglectful and indifferent, and make delay after delay, and form purpose after purpose, and fix again and again the days after which you will begin to attend to yourself, you will not see that you are making no advance, but will be now and always a sensualist, living and dying.

Therefore hold yourself worthy forthwith to live as a man of full age, and with your foot on the path; and let whatever appears to you as the best be to you as an inviolable law. And when anything is presented to you which involves toil, or pleasure, or reputation or the loss of it, remember that now is the conflict, here are the Olympic games, and you can put them off no longer; and that in a single day and in a single trial ground is to be lost or gained.

It was thus that Socrates made himself what he was, on every occasion bringing forward his true self, and never having regard to anything else than Reason, And you, though you are not yet Socrates, yet as one who desires to be Socrates so you ought to live.