Epictetus, Golden Sayings 159

Remember that in life you should order your conduct as at a banquet. 

Has any dish that is being served reached you? Stretch forth your hand and help yourself modestly. 

Does it pass you by? Seek not to detain it. 

Has it not yet come? Send not forth your desire to meet it, but wait until it reaches you. 

Deal thus with children, thus with wife; thus with office, thus with wealth—and one day you will be meet to share the Banquets of the Gods. 

But if you do not so much as touch that which is placed before you, but despise it, then shall you not only share the Banquets of the Gods, but their Empire also. 

IMAGE: Antonio Verrio, The Banquet of the Gods (c. 1680)