For it is the part of a wise man to practice restrained good temper. - Euripides

To have learnt to live on the common level
Is better. No grand life for me,
Just peace and quiet as I grow old.
The middle way, neither great nor mean,
Is best by far, in name and practice.
To be rich and powerful brings no blessing;
Only more utterly
Is the prosperous house destroyed, when gods are angry.

Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.

How strange, that bad soil, if the gods send rain and sun, Bears a rich crop, while good soil, starved of what it needs, Is Barren; but man´s nature is ingrained - the bad Is never anything but bad, and the good man Is good: misfortune cannot warp his character, His goodness will endure.