A passage from Epictetus
Epictetus, Enchiridion 22
✱
If you have an earnest desire towards philosophy, prepare yourself from the very first to be laughed at, to be sneered by the multitude, to hear them say, 'He is returned to us a philosopher all at once.'
Related passages
✱
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
✱
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being.'
✱
Take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed with purple; for it does happen. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation.