"But my country will suffer without my help," you say. What kind of help do you mean? Your country won't have fancy buildings or public baths that you built? So what? A blacksmith doesn't provide shoes for the country. A shoemaker doesn't provide weapons. It's enough if everyone does their own job well. If you gave your country another honest and honorable citizen, wouldn't that help? Yes. So you're not useless either. "But what position will I have in society?" you ask. Whatever position you can hold while keeping your integrity and honor. If you throw those away trying to be useful, how can you serve your country once you've become dishonest and shameless?
Well, but my country, say you, as far as depends upon me, will be unassisted. Here, again, what assistance is this you mean? It will not have porticos nor baths of your providing? And what signifies that? Why, neither does a smith provide it with shoes, nor a shoemaker with arms. It is enough if everyone fully performs his own proper business. And were you to supply it with another faithful and honorable citizen, would not he be of use to it? Yes. Therefore neither are you yourself useless to it. "What place, then," say you, "shall I hold in the state?" Whatever you can hold with the preservation of your fidelity and honor. But if, by desiring to be useful to that, you lose these, how can you serve your country when you have become faithless and shameless?