How much more do we need to do this? Let's ask our best friends to give us their honest opinion, especially when we least want to hear it. They should never just go along with us when we're angry. While we're thinking clearly and have control of ourselves, let's ask for help against such a powerful enemy — one that we wrongly think is our friend. People who can't handle their wine well, and worry they might do something rash or rude, tell their servants to take them away from dinner parties when they're drunk. Those who know from experience how unreasonable they become when sick give orders that no one should obey them when they're ill.
How much more needful is it for us to do this? let us beg all our best friends to give us their opinion with the greatest freedom at the very time when we can bear it least, and never to be compliant with us when we are angry. While we are in our right senses, while we are under our own control, let us call for help against so powerful an evil, and one which we regard with such unjust favour. Those who cannot carry their wine discreetly, and fear to be betrayed into some rash and insolent act, give their slaves orders to take them away from the banquet when they are drunk; those who know by experience how unreasonable they are when sick give orders that no one is to obey them when they are in ill health.