“You ask what I think you should take special care to avoid: the crowd. You cannot yet trust yourself safely to it. I at least will admit my weakness; I never bring back the same character which I took from home. Something has been upset from the state of calm I had achieved: something of the faults I had put to flight returns. It is like the experience of the sick, who have been so affected by long weakness that they cannot go out anywhere without being shaken up; this is what happens to us as our minds are being restored from a long sickness. Association with a large group is harmful; there is no one who does not either recommend some fault to us or impose it upon us or smear it on us when we are unaware.”

—Seneca