"O King of the Lydians, we Greeks have been endowed with moderate gifts, by Heaven, and our wisdom is of a cautious and homely cast, not of a royal and magnificent character; so, being moderate itself, and seeing the manifold chances to which life is exposed, it does not permit us to take a pride in our present possessions, nor to admire the good fortune of any man when it is liable to change. Strange things await every man in the unknown future; and we think that man alone happy whose life has been brought to a fortunate termination. To congratulate a man who is yet alive and exposed to the
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