Pythagoras’ teachings

He forbids us to pray for ourselves, since we do not know what is good for us. He substitutes for the word ‘drunkness’ the word ‘damage’, and rejects every type of satiety, saying that one should not exceed what is moderate when drinking or eating. About sexual pleasure he speaks as follows: ‘Have sexual relations in winter, not in summer; though less harmful in autumn and spring, they are harmful in every season and not good for one’s health’. When someone once asked him when one should have sexual relations, he replied, ‘Whenever you want to become weaker than yourself.’

Diogenes Laertius - Lives of the eminent philosophers

Teach your child this

Teach the boy this:

what he may justly wish for; that money is hard to earn and should be used properly; the extent of our duty to our country and to our dear ones; what God orders you to be, and what place He assigned to you in the scheme of things; what we are and what we shall win when we have overcome; [Persius, Satires, III, 69-73]

teach him what knowing and not knowing means (which ought to be the aim of study); what valour is, and justice and temperance; what difference there is between ordonate and inordinate aspirations; slavery and due subordonation; licence and liberty; what are the signs of true and solid happiness; how far we should fear death, pain and shame;

How we can flee from hardships and how we can endure them [Virgil, Aeneas, III, 459]

what principles govern our emotions and the physiology of so many and diverse stirrings within us. For it seems to me that the first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die... and to live.

Michel de Montaigne - Complete Essays (I, 26)