CLXXVIII   
   
   
At feasts, remember that you are entertaining two guests, body and soul. What you give to the body, you presently lose; what you give to the soul, you keep for ever.     1   

CLXXIX   
   
   
At meals see to it that those who serve be not more in number that those who are served. It is absurd for a crowd of persons to be dancing attendance on half a dozen chairs.

CLXXX   
   
   
It is best to share with your attendants what is going forward, both in the labour of preparation and in the enjoyment of the feast itself. If such a thing be difficult at the time, recollect that you who are not weary are being served by those that are; you who are eating and drinking by those who do neither; you who are talking by those who are silent; you who are at ease by those who are under constraint. Thus no sudden wrath will betray you into unreasonable conduct, nor will you behave harshly by irritating another.     1   

CLXXXI   
   
   
When Xanthippe was chiding Socrates for making scanty preparation for entertaining his friends, he answered:—“If they are friends of ours, they will not care for that; if they are not, we shall care nothing for them!”     1   

CLXXXII   
   
   
Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, “He who is content.”     1   

CLXXXIII   
    
    
Favorinus 1 tells us how Epictetus would also say that there were two faults far graver and fouler than any others—inability to bear, and inability to forbear, when we neither patiently bear the blows that must be borne, nor abstain from the things and the pleasures we ought to abstain from. “So, he went on, “if a man will only have these two words at heart, and heed them carefully by ruling and watching over himself, he will for the most part fall into no sin, and his life will be tranquil and serene.” He meant the words [Greek]—“BEAR AND FORBEAR.”     1   
    
Note 1. A Roman orator and sophist.

CLXXXIV   
   
   
On all occasions these thoughts should be at hand:—
           Lead me, O God, and Thou, O Destiny, 1   
Be what it may the goal appointed me,   
Bravely I’ll follow; nay, and if I would not,   
I’d prove a coward, yet must follow still!   
Again:
           Who to Necessity doth bow aright,   
Is learn’d in wisdom and the things of God.Once more:
             Crito, if this be God’s will, so let it be. As for me, Anytus and Meletus can indeed put me to death, but injure me, never!   
  1   
   
Note 1. These verses are by Cleanthes, the successor of Zeno as leader of the Stoics, and author of the Hymn printed in Appendix B

CLXXXV   
   
   
We shall then be like Socrates, when we can indite hymns of praise to the Gods in prison.

   
CLXXXVI   
   
   
It is hard to combine and unite these two qualities, the carefulness of one who is affected by circumstances, and the intrepidity of one who heeds them not. But it is not impossible: else were happiness also impossible. We should act as we do in seafaring.     1   
  “What can I do?”—Choose the master, the crew, the day, the opportunity. Then comes a sudden storm. What matters it to me? my part has been fully done. The matter is in the hands of another—the Master of the ship. The ship is foundering. What then have I to do? I do the only thing that remains to me—to be drowned without fear, without a cry, without upbraiding God, but knowing that what has been born must likewise perish. For I am not Eternity, but a human being—a part of the whole, as an hour is part of the day. I must come like the hour, and like the hour must pass!     2   

CLXXXVII   
   
   
And now we are sending you to Rome to spy out the land; but none send a coward as such a spy, that, if her hear but a noise and see a shadow moving anywhere, loses his wits and comes flying to say, The enemy are upon us!     1   
  So if you go now, and come and tell us: “Everything at Rome is terrible: Death is terrible, Exile is terrible, Slander is terrible, Want is terrible; fly, comrades! the enemy are upon us!” we shall reply, Get you gone, and prophesy to yourself! we have but erred in sending such a spy as you. Diogenes, who was sent as a spy long before you, brought us back another report than this. He says that Death is no evil; for it need not even bring shame with it. He says that Fame is but the empty noise of madmen. And what report did this spy bring us of Pain, what of Pleasure, what of Want? That to be clothed in sackcloth is better than any purple robe; that sleeping on the bare ground is the softest couch; and in proof of each assertion he points to his own courage, constancy, and freedom; to his own healthy and muscular frame. “There is no enemy near,” he cries, “all is perfect peace!”     2