Discourses, On the Power of Speaking

Epictetus — The Slave

What do most people do instead? They act like a traveler heading home who stops at a nice inn and decides to stay there forever. You've forgotten your purpose. You weren't traveling to live at this inn. You were just passing through it. But this inn is so pleasant! Sure, and how many other inns are pleasant? How many beautiful meadows are pleasant? They're still just places to pass through. Your real purpose is to return home, to ease your family's worries, to do your duty as a citizen, to marry, to have children, to serve in public office. You didn't come here to hunt for the most pleasant spots. You came to live where you were born and where you belong as a citizen.

Epictetus — The Slave Original

What then is usually done? Men generally act as a traveller would do on his way to his own country, when he enters a good inn, and being pleased with it should remain there. Man, you have forgotten your purpose: you were not travelling to this inn, but you were passing through it. But this is a pleasant inn. And how many other inns are pleasant? and how many meadows are pleasant? yet only for passing through. But your purpose is this, to return to your country, to relieve your kinsmen of anxiety, to discharge the duties of a citizen, to marry, to beget children, to fill the usual magistracies. For you are not come to select more pleasant places, but to live in these where you were born and of which you were made a citizen.