/lit/ - Literature

>When you have savories and fine dishes set before you, you will gain an idea of their nature if you tell yourself that this is the corpse of a fish, and that is the corpse of a bird or a pig; or again, that wine is merely grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dipped in the blood of a shellfish; and as for sexual intercourse, it is the friction of a piece of gut and, following a sort of convulsion, the expulsion of some mucus.
>Thoughts such as these reach through to the things themselves and strike to the heart of them, allowing us to see them as they truly are. So follow this practice throughout your life, and where things seem most worthy of your approval, lay them naked, and see how cheap they are, and strip them of the pretenses of which they are so vain. For pride is an ever-subtle deceiver, and it is just when you are most confident that you are engaged on serious matters that it most surely beguiles you. Consider, for instance, what Crates said about Xenocrates himself in this regard.