Letter 216: I am troubled that in our time the names of virtues and vices have been systematically confused.

To Theodorus the Scholastic [an advocate or man of letters]. For the sake of money and of office, and so as to yield none of these things to anyone, men often dare what goes beyond both pardon and punishment. For wishing to acquire these things, they acquire them through countless evils; and fearing to lose them, they set their hands to deeds far more grievous still. For reckoning that to lose them is more terrible than never to have acquired them at all, they contrive things harsher still. One must therefore get the better of the passions at their very outset, so that we may not at the last be caught suffering from incurable diseases.

Συγγνώμης καὶ τιμωρίας μείζονα πολλάκις τολμῶσιν ἄνθρωποι χρημάτων ἕνεκεν καὶ ἀρχῆς, καὶ τοῦ μηδενὶ τούτων παραχωρῆσαι. Κτήσασθαι μὲν γὰρ αὐτὰ βουλόμενοι, διὰ μυρίων κακῶν κτῶνται, καὶ φοδούμενοι ἀποβαλεῖν, πολλῷ ἀργαλεωτέροις ἐγχειροῦσι. Νομίζοντες γὰρ τὸ ἀποβαλεῖν τοῦ μηδὲ κτήσασθαι δεινότερον εἶναι, χαλεπώτερα μηχανῶνται· χρὴ οὖν ἐν προοιμίοις περιγίνεσθαι τῶν παθῶν, ἵνα μὴ τελευτῶντες ἀνήκεστα νοσοῦντες φωραθῶμεν.