So let everything you do have a purpose. Keep some goal in mind. These restless people aren't driven by real work — they're driven crazy by wrong ideas. Even they don't move without some hope. They get excited by how things look on the surface. Their confused minds can't see that it's all pointless. In the same way, everyone who goes out to join the crowds in the streets gets led around the city by worthless, empty reasons. Dawn pushes them out of the house even though they have nothing to do. They shove their way to many people's doors. They greet one doorkeeper after another. Many doors get slammed in their faces. Then they discover the hardest person to find at home is themselves. This bad habit leads to the worst vice of all: gossiping and prying into public and private secrets. They learn many things that are dangerous to tell and dangerous to hear.
Let all your work, therefore, have some purpose, and keep some object in view: these restless people are not made restless by labour, but are driven out of their minds by mistaken ideas: for even they do not put themselves in motion without any hope: they are excited by the outward appearance of something, and their crazy mind cannot see its futility. In the same way every one of those who walk out to swell the crowd in the streets, is led round the city by worthless and empty reasons; the dawn drives him forth, although he has nothing to do, and after he has pushed his way into many men's doors, and saluted their nomenclators one after the other, and been turned away from many others, he finds that the most difficult person of all to find at home is himself. From this evil habit comes that worst of all vices, talebearing and prying into public and private secrets, and the knowledge of many things which it is neither safe to tell nor safe to listen to.