There are three areas where you need to train yourself if you want to be wise and good. First: your wants and dislikes. Learn to get what you desire and avoid what you don't want. Second: your actions and choices. Do what you should do in the right way, using reason instead of acting carelessly. Third: your judgments. Don't let yourself be fooled or make rash decisions. Of these three areas, the most important and urgent is the first one — dealing with your emotions.
There are three things (topics, [Greek: topoi]) in which a man ought to exercise himself who would be wise and good. The first concerns the desires and the aversions, that a man may not fail to get what he desires, and that he may not fall into that which he does not desire. The second concerns the movements towards an object and the movements from an object, and generally in doing what a man ought to do, that he may act according to order, to reason, and not carelessly. The third thing concerns freedom from deception and rashness in judgment, and generally it concerns the assents ([Greek: sugchatatheseis]). Of these topics the chief and the most urgent is that which relates to the affects ([Greek: