Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 27

Si tamen exemplum desideratis, accipite Socraten, perpessicium senem, per omnia aspera iactatum, invictum tamen et paupertate, quam graviorem illi domestica onera faciebant, et laboribus, quos militares quoque pertulit. Quibus ille domi exercitus est, sive uxorem eius reminiscimur moribus feram, lingua petulantem, sive liberos indociles et matri quam patri similiores. Si vere reputes, aut in bello fuit aut in tyrannide aut in libertate bellis ac tyrannis saeviore.

D’ailleurs, s’il vous faut un exemple, prenez Socrate, vieillard éprouvé par tous les malheurs, poussé sur tous les écueils, et que n’ont vaincu ni la pauvreté, aggravée encore par ses charges domestiques, ni les fatigues des camps qu’il dut subir aussi, ni les tracasseries de famille dont il fut harcelé, soit par une femme aux mœurs intraitables, à la parole hargneuse, soit par d’indociles enfants qui ressemblaient plus à leur mère qu’à leur père. Quelle vie passée presque toute ou à la guerre, ou sous la tyrannie, ou sous une liberté plus cruelle que la guerre et que les tyrans !

If, however, you desire a pattern, take Socrates, a long-suffering old man, who was sea-tossed amid every hardship and yet was unconquered both by poverty (which his troubles at home made more burdensome) and by toil, including the drudgery of military service. He was much tried at home, whether we think of his wife, a woman of rough manners and shrewish tongue, or of the children whose intractability showed them to be more like their mother than their father. And if you consider the facts, he lived either in time of war, or under tyrants, or under a democracy, which is more cruel than wars and tyrants.