But if you don't remember this, consider that your chances are slipping away. Whatever effort you put into improving yourself, you're going to waste it all and destroy it. It takes only a few small things to lose and destroy everything — just a tiny step away from reason. A ship's captain doesn't need much to wreck his ship. He needs a lot of skill to save it, but to destroy it? He just has to turn it slightly into the wind and it's lost. Even if he doesn't mean to do this — if he just gets a little careless — the ship is still lost. The same thing happens with your character. If you just nod off a little, everything you've built up to this point is gone.
But if you do not, consider that the times of opportunity are perishing, and that whatever pains you take about yourself, you are going to waste them all and overturn them. And it needs only a few things for the loss and overturning of all—namely, a small deviation from reason. For the steerer of a ship to upset it, he has no need of the same means as he has need of for saving it; but if he turns it a little to the wind, it is lost; and if he does not do this purposely, but has been neglecting his duty a little, the ship is lost. Something of the kind happens in this case also; if you only fall a nodding a little, all that you have up to this time collected is gone.