Even the gods love jokes.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individual, or in governments.