If with all this,
it is your duty to go, bear what happens, and never say to yourself,
It was not worth the trouble! For that would smack of the foolish and
unlearned who suffer outward things to touch them.
CLXXI
In company avoid frequent and undue talk about your own actions and
dangers. However pleasant it may be to you to enlarge upon the risks
you have run, others may not find such pleasure in listening to your
adventures. Avoid provoking laughter also: it is a habit from which
one easily slides into the ways of the foolish, and apt to diminish the
respect which your neighbors feel for you. To border on coarse talk is
also dangerous. On such occasions, if a convenient opportunity offer,
rebuke the speaker. If not, at least by relapsing into silence,
colouring, and looking annoyed, show that you are displeased with the
subject.
CLXXII
When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it,
never shun being seen doing it, even though the multitude should be
likely to judge the matter amiss. For if you are not acting rightly,
shun the act itself; if rightly, however, why fear misplaced censure?
CLXXIII
It stamps a man of mean capacity to spend much time on the things of the
body, as to be long over bodily exercises, long over eating, long over
drinking, long over other bodily functions.
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