על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב י״גOn the Special Laws, Book II 13
א׳
1[46] Such men filled with high worthiness, inured to disregard ills of the body or of external things, schooled to hold things indifferent as indeed indifferent, armed against the pleasures and lusts, ever eager to take their stand superior to the passions in general, trained to use every effort to overthrow the formidable menace which those passions have built up against them, never swerving under the blows of fortune because they have calculated beforehand the force of its assaults; since the heaviest adversities are lightened by anticipation, when the mind ceases to find anything strange in the event and apprehends it but dully as it might some stale and familiar story—such men, we say, in the delight of their virtues, naturally make their whole life a feast.
ב׳
2[47] These are indeed but a small number left in their cities like an ember of wisdom to smoulder, that virtue may not be altogether extinguished and lost to our race.
ג׳
3[48] But if only everywhere men had thought and felt as these few, and become what nature intended them to be, all of them blameless and guiltless and lovers of sound sense, rejoicing in moral excellence just because it is what it is and counting it the only true good and all the other goods but slaves and vassals, subject to their authority, the cities would have been brimful of happiness, utterly free from all that causes grief and fears, and packed with what produces joys and states of well-being, so that each season as it comes would give full opportunity for cheerful living and the whole cycle of the year would be a feast.