Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a
banquet. Suppose that something is carried round and is
opposite to you. Stretch out your hand and take a
portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you.
Do not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you.
Do not send your desire forward to it, but wait till it
is opposite to you. Do so with respect to children, so
with respect to a wife, so with respect to magisterial
offices, so with respect to wealth, and you will be some
time a worthy partner of the banquets of the gods. But
if you take none of the things which are set before you,
and even despise them, then you will be not only a fellow
banqueter with the gods, but also a partner with them in
power. For by acting thus Diogenes and Heracleitus and
those like them were deservedly divine, and were so.
called.
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The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments. Epictetus. George Long. translator. London. George Bell and Sons. 1890.
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