"If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures. If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures."
— Musonius Rufus
If You Accomplish Something Good With
If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures. If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures.
About this quote
From Fragment 51 of Musonius Rufus's lectures. This aphorism captures the Stoic doctrine that actions have durable consequences while their pleasures or pains are transient: the decision to act shamefully for pleasure is a bad trade, since the pleasure vanishes immediately while the damage to character and reputation endures. Seneca makes an almost identical point in his letters — that the body's pleasures are brief while the memory of honourable conduct is permanent. Marcus Aurelius similarly urged attention to the long arc of consequences rather than the immediate feeling.
Source
Lectures, Fragment 51
