XCIII
Abstaining from Drink
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Behold the men who are addicted to drink: they will never be feared by their enemies, and even the glory they have acquired they will lose.
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Let none drink: but if they desire, let those men drink who care not for the esteem of worthy men.
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The sight of the man who is intoxicated is an abomination even unto his own mother: what must it be then to the worthy?
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Behold the man who is addicted to the low vice of drunkenness: the fair one called Shame turneth her back upon him.
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It is the veriest idiocy to spend one’s substance and obtain in return only insensibility.
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Behold the men who drink the poison called toddy day after day: they are as men that are asleep, neither do they differ from dead men.
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Behold the men who drink in secret and pass their days in torpid insensibility: their neighbours will soon find them out, and hold them in utter contempt.
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Let not the drunkard pretend, saying, I know not even what it is to be drunk: for thereby he would merely add falsehood to his other vice.
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Behold the man who reproveth one who is intoxicated: he is like a man who searcheth torch in hand one who is immersed under water.
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The man who seeth while he is sober the drunken state of another man, cannot he picture to himself his own state when he is drunk?