I have never seen such a man.

Good for you, Hermotimus! You do not tell deliberate lies. Then what have you in view as a philosopher, when you see neither your teacher nor his teacher nor his predecessor even back to the tenth generation truly wise and therefore happy? For it would not be right for you to say that it is enough if you come near to happiness—that is of no use: a man standing by the door is as much outside the threshold and in the open as one a long way off, the difference being that the former will be more annoyed because he has a near view of what he cannot have. Then just to get near happiness (this I will grant you) you take all that trouble, wearing yourself out, and so much of your life has slipped away in torpor and weariness, slumped in sleeplessness; and you will labour on, as you say, for at least another twenty years, so that when you are eighty (have you a guarantee of living so long?) you may be one of those who are not yet happy—unless you think that you alone will reach and grasp in your pursuit that which very many good and far swifter men have pursued before you and failed to catch.

Well, catch it then, if you wish: grasp and hold all of it; but in the first place I do not see what good could ever be supposed to compensate for all these efforts. Then what time will you have left to enjoy it, old man as you will be, too far gone for pleasure, and with one foot in the grave, as they say? Unless, my noble friend, you are putting in training for a future life, so that you can live it better when you get there, knowing how to live like a man preparing and training himself for a better dinner for such a long time that before he knows it he is dead of hunger.