Can't serve in the army? Then run for office. Must stay out of politics? Then become a lawyer. Not allowed to speak publicly? Then give quiet advice to your fellow citizens. Too dangerous even to enter the public square? Then be a good friend, a loyal companion, a pleasant guest at dinner parties and festivals. Lost your citizenship? Then act like a human being. We Stoics refuse to limit ourselves to one city. We reach out to all lands and call ourselves citizens of the world. This gives us a bigger stage to show our virtue.
He is not able to serve in the army: then let him become a candidate for civic honours: must he live in a private station? then let him be an advocate: is he condemned to keep silence? then let him help his countrymen with silent counsel. Is it dangerous for him even to enter the forum? then let him prove himself a good comrade, a faithful friend, a sober guest in people's houses, at public shows, and at wine-parties. Suppose that he has lost the status of a citizen; then let him exercise that of a man: our reason for magnanimously refusing to confine ourselves within the walls of one city, for having gone forth to enjoy intercourse with all lands and for professing ourselves to be citizens of the world is that we may thus obtain a wider theatre on which to display our virtue.