Yet constantia was never intended primarily as a recipe for passivity: on the contrary, it was intended to steel the citizen against the bad times which would reduce other mortals to flight or despair, as well as against the passionate temptations which led other men into rebellion and civil chaos.
For Lipsius, to resist the temptation to civil insurrection was a greater act of self-discipline than to give in to it. But this was not a license for passivity.