The highest good is wisdom, the chief evil is suffering of the body. Seeing that we are made up of two things, that is soul and body, of which the first is the better and the body is the inferior, wisdom belongs to the better part; and the chief evil belongs to the worse part and is the worst. The best thing in the soul is wisdom, and even so the worst thing in the body is pain. Therefore just as bodily pain is the chief evil, so wisdom is the chief good of the soul, that is of the wise man; and nothing else can be compared to it.*

