“Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. . . . You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person or to become a better person at the cost of those friends . . . if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.2.1; 4–5