There was a man named Mindyrides from the city of Sybaris. One day he saw someone digging with a heavy tool and working hard. The sight tired him out so much that he told the worker to stop — at least where Mindyrides could see him. This same man once complained that he couldn't sleep because the rose petals in his bed were folded the wrong way. When pleasure corrupts both your body and mind, nothing feels bearable. Not because life is actually hard, but because you've made yourself soft. Why should anyone fly into a rage over someone coughing or sneezing? Or over a fly that wasn't shooed away fast enough? Or a dog hanging around, or a servant dropping a key?
It is said that there was one Mindyrides, a citizen of Sybaris, who one day seeing a man digging and vigorously brandishing a mattock, complained that the sight made him weary, and forbade the man to work where he could see him. The same man complained that he had suffered from the rose-leaves upon which he lay being folded double. When pleasures have corrupted both the body and the mind, nothing seems endurable, not indeed because it is hard, but because he who has to bear it is soft: for why should we be driven to frenzy by any one's coughing and sneezing, or by a fly not being driven away with sufficient care, or by a dog's hanging about us, or a key dropping from a careless servant's hand?