Where The Danger Is Great, So Also Is The Fruit

So where, I say, the danger is great, so also is the fruit. Here we must turn aside these fallacious arguments on the grounds that they are insidious and insulting and contrived, by means of terminological ambiguity, to lead wretched human beings astray…. Let us not avoid every pain that is present, and let us not choose every pleasure, as the many always do. Each person must employ reasoning, since he will not always achieve immediate success: just as exertion often involves one gain at the beginning and certain others as time passes by, so it is also with experiencing pleasure; for sowings of seeds do not bring the same benefit to the sower, but we see some seeds very quickly germinating and bearing fruit and others taking longer.

- Diogenes of Oinoanda (Martin Ferguson Smith) Fragment 34.