To This matter before all you must attend: that you be never so closely connected with any of your former intimates or friends as to come down to the same acts as he does. If you do not observe this rule, you will ruin yourself. But if the thought arises in your mind. “I shall seem disobliging to him, and he will not have the same feeling toward me,” remember that nothing is done without cost, nor is it possible for a man if he does not do the same to be the same man that he was. Choose, then, which of the two you will have, to be equally loved by those by whom you were formerly loved, being the same with your former self; or, being superior, not to obtain from your friends the same that you did before. For if this is better, turn away to it, and let not other considerations draw you in a different direction. For no man is able to make progress, when he is wavering between opposite things, but if you have preferred this to all things, if you choose to attend to this only, to work out this only, give up everything else. But if you will not do this, your wavering will produce both these results: you will neither improve as you ought, nor will you obtain what you formerly obtained. For before, by plainly desiring the things which we............