|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: state does not lay burthens on you and treat you like a slave; and
secondly, people do not fall into a rage with you when you refuse to
be their creditor.
You may stay your envy (interposed Niceratus), I shall presently
present myself to borrow of him this same key of his to
independence.[69] Trained as I am to cast up figures by my master
Homer--
Seven tripods, which ne'er felt the fire, and of gold ten talents
And burnished braziers twenty, and horses twelve--[70]
by weight and measure duly reckoned,[71] I cannot stay my craving for
enormous wealth. And that's the reason certain people, I daresay,
The Symposium | 
