This sentence brief, Do nothing to excess,
Wise men have always praised exceedingly.
29. He therefore that hath these impressed upon his mind as the
precepts of the Pythian oracle, can easily conform himself to all the
affairs of life, and bear them handsomely; considering his nature, so
that he is neither lifted up to arrogance upon a prosperous event,
nor when an adverse happens, is dejected into complaint through
pusillanimity and that fear of death which is so congenial to us;
both which proceed from the ignorance of those things which fall out
in human life by necessity and fatal decree. The Pythagoreans speak
handsomely to this purpose:—
Against those evils thou shouldest not repine,
Which are inflicted by the powers divine.