If you are dazzled by the semblance of any promised pleasure, guard yourself against being bewildered
by it; but let the affair wait your leisure, and procure
yourself some delay. Then bring to your mind both
points of time, -that in which you shall enjoy the
pleasure, and that in which you will repent and reproach yourself, after you have enjoyed it, - and
set before you, in opposition to these, how you will
rejoice and applaud yourself, if you abstain. And
even though it should appear to you a seasonable
gratification, take heed that its enticements and allurements and seductions may not subdue you; but
set in opposition to this, how much better it is to be
conscious of having gained so great a victory.
The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.
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