How can a person who depends on pleasure obey God? How can they accept whatever happens with a cheerful heart? How can they never complain about fate and see the good in everything that befalls them? It's impossible when they get upset by every small pleasure or pain. A person who chases pleasure cannot protect their country well. They cannot fight for justice. They cannot defend their friends.
How can such a man obey God and receive everything which comes to pass in a cheerful spirit, never complaining of fate, and putting a good construction upon everything that befalls him, if he be agitated by the petty pin-pricks of pleasures and pains? A man cannot be a good protector of his country, a good avenger of her wrongs, or a good defender of his friends, if he be inclined to pleasures.