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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: suspected of not being our parents, or we of not being such as our
panegyrists declare. Let not either of the two alternatives happen, but
rather let them be our chief and true panegyrists, who show in their lives
that they are true men, and had men for their sons. Of old the saying,
"Nothing too much," appeared to be, and really was, well said. For he
whose happiness rests with himself, if possible, wholly, and if not, as far
as is possible,--who is not hanging in suspense on other men, or changing
with the vicissitude of their fortune,--has his life ordered for the best.
He is the temperate and valiant and wise; and when his riches come and go,
when his children are given and taken away, he will remember the proverb--
"Neither rejoicing overmuch nor grieving overmuch," for he relies upon
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