Remember that you must behave as at a banquet.
Is anything brought round to you? Put out your
hand, and take a moderate share. Does it pass by
you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not
yearn in desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.
So with regard to children, wife, office, riches; and
you will some time or other be worthy to feast with
the gods. And if you do not so much as take the
things which are set before you, but are able even to
forego them, then you will not only be worthy to
feast with the gods, but to rule with them also. For,
by thus doing, Diogenes and Heraclitus, and others
like them, deservedly became divine, and were so
recognized.
The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.
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