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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: words they are supposed to meet about some affair of love either past or in
contemplation; but when non-lovers meet, no one asks the reason why,
because people know that talking to another is natural, whether friendship
or mere pleasure be the motive. Once more, if you fear the fickleness of
friendship, consider that in any other case a quarrel might be a mutual
calamity; but now, when you have given up what is most precious to you, you
will be the greater loser, and therefore, you will have more reason in
being afraid of the lover, for his vexations are many, and he is always
fancying that every one is leagued against him. Wherefore also he debars
his beloved from society; he will not have you intimate with the wealthy,
lest they should exceed him in wealth, or with men of education, lest they
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