[32] If possible avoid drinking-parties altogether,
1
but if ever occasion arises when you must be present, rise and take your leave before you become intoxicated;
2
for when the mind is impaired by wine it is like chariots which have lost their drivers; for just as these plunge along in wild disorder when they miss the hands which should guide them, so the soul stumbles again and again when the intellect is impaired.
3
Cultivate the thoughts of an immortal by being lofty of soul, but of a mortal by enjoying in due measure the good things which you possess.
4
To Demonicus. Isocrates. George Norlin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.
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