The measure of possession (property) is to every man
the body, as the foot is of the shoe.1 If then you stand
on this rule (the demands of the body), you will maintain
the measure: but if you pass beyond it, you must then of
necessity be hurried as it were down a precipice. As also
in the matter of the shoe, if you go beyond the (necessities
of the) foot, the shoe is gilded, then of a purple colour,
then embroidered:2
for there is no limit to that which has once passed the true measure.
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The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments. Epictetus. George Long. translator. London. George Bell and Sons. 1890.
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