_Precepts_
Do not stir the fire with a sword.
Do not devour your heart.
Always have your bed packed up.
Do not walk in the main street.
Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
Avoid a sharp sword.
When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
[Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death.]
Consider nothing exclusively your own.
Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter,
and yet not looking stern. [_Cf._ Emerson on Manners.]
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by
William C. Lawton.