Don't let thoughts like these upset you: "I'll live in shame and be nobody anywhere." If shame is truly bad, then you can't be harmed by what others do any more than you can be made corrupt by them. Is it your job to gain power or get invited to parties? Not at all. So how is this really shameful? And how can you be nobody anywhere when you should only matter in things that are up to you — things where you can be truly important?
Let not such considerations as these distress you: "I shall live in discredit and be nobody anywhere." For if discredit be an evil, you can no more be involved in evil through another than in baseness. Is it any business of yours, then, to get power or to be admitted to an entertainment? By no means. How then, after all, is this discredit? And how it is true that you will be nobody anywhere when you ought to be somebody in those things only which are within your own power, in which you may be of the greatest consequence?