To Demonicus

Be content with your present lot, but seek a better one. Taunt no man with his misfortune for fate is common to all and the future is a thing unseen. Bestow your favors on the good; for a goodly treasury is a store of gratitude laid up in the heart of an honest man. If you benefit bad men, you will have the same reward as those who feed stray dogs; for these snarl alike at those who give them food and at the passing stranger; and just so base men wrong alike those who help and those who harm them.[*](The same cynicism is expressed in Theog. 105-106: deilou\s eu)= e)/rdonti mataiota/th xa/ris e)sti/n: i)=son kai\ spei/rein po/nton a(lo\s polih=s.)

Abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them. If you admit to your friendship men who seek your favor for the lowest ends, your life will be lacking in friends who will risk your displeasure for the highest good. Be affable in your relations with those who approach you, and never haughty; for the pride of the arrogant even slaves can hardly endure, whereas when men are affable all are glad to bear with their ways.

But to be affable, you must not be quarrelsome, nor hard to please, nor always determined to have your way; you must not oppose harshly the angry moods of your associates, even if they happen to be angry without reason, but rather give way to them when they are in the heat of passion and rebuke them when their anger has cooled; you must avoid being serious when the occasion is one for mirth, or taking pleasure in mirth when the occasion is serious (for what is unseasonable is always offensive); you must not bestow your favors ungraciously as do the majority who, when they must oblige their friends, do it offensively; and you must not be given to fault-finding, which is irksome, nor be censorious, which is exasperating.

If possible avoid drinking-parties altogether,[*](For drinking-parties in Athens see Isocrates' picture in Isoc. 15.286-7.) but if ever occasion arises when you must be present, rise and take your leave before you become intoxicated;[*](Theognis gives the same advice, Theog. 484 ff.) 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.[*](This recalls the figure of the charioteer and the two horses in Plat. Phaedrus 247a-c. There is an exact parallel in Libanius, xii. 40.) 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.[*](Cf. Isoc. 1.9)