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Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 180


It is best to share with your attendants what is going forward, both in the labor 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. 

IMAGE: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Banquet of Cleopatra (1744) 



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