JUV. Sat. v. 1.
But harden'd by affronts, and still the same,
Lost to all sense of honour and of fame,
Thou yet canst love to haunt the great man's board,
And think no supper good but with a lord. BOWLES.
When Diogenes was once asked, what kind of wine he liked best? he
answered, "That which is drunk at the cost of others."
Though the character of Diogenes has never excited any general zeal of
imitation, there are many who resemble him in his taste of wine; many
who are frugal, though not abstemious; whose appetites, though too
powerful for reason, are kept under restraint by avarice; and to whom
all delicacies lose their flavour, when they cannot be obtained but at
their own expense.
Nothing produces more singularity of manners and inconstancy of life,
than the conflict of opposite vices in the same mind. He that uniformly
pursues any purpose, whether good or bad, has a settled principle of
action; and as he may always find associates who are travelling the same
way, is countenanced by example, and sheltered in the multitude; but a
man, actuated at once by different desires, must move in a direction
peculiar to himself, and suffer that reproach which we are naturally
inclined to bestow on those who deviate from the rest of the world, even
without inquiring whether they are worse or better.
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