Do not wish to be thought to know any thing; and though you should appear to be somebody to others, distrust yourself. For, be assured, it is not easy at once to preserve your Faculty of Choice in a State conformable to Nature, and [to secure] Externals: but while you are careful about the one, you must of Necessity neglect the other.
XIV.
If you wish your Children, and your Wife, and your Friends, to live for ever, you are stupid: for you wish Things to be in your Power, which are not so; and, what belongs to others, to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your Servant to be without Fault, you are a Fool; for you wish Vice not to be Vice[1], but something else. But, if you wish to have your Desires undisappointed, this is in your own Power. Exercise, therefore, what is in your Power. He is the Master of every other Person, who is able to confer, or remove, whatever that Person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a Slave.
XV.
Remember that you must behave [in Life] as at an Entertainment[2]. Is any thing brought round to you? Put out your Hand, and take your Share, with Moderation. Doth it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch forth your Desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Thus [do] with regard to Children, to a Wife, to public posts, to Riches; and you will be some time or other a worthy Partner of the Feasts of the Gods. And if you do not so much as take the Things which are set before you, but are able even to des-
