They say, too, that when he [Chilo] was old he said, that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend’s cause he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law, and yet save his friend." "He [Pittacus] was also a lawgiver; and he made a law that if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island... Another of his sayings was, 'Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity.' Another was, 'Power shows the man.' — Diogenes Laertius, *Lives*, Book I, Chilon III & Pittacus III–IV (trans. C. D. Yonge, 1853) **Surface Gloss:** Chilon confesses a single lifelong moral doubt: voting strictly by the law as a juror while persuading a fellow juror to acquit his friend. Pittacus enacts a law doubling the penalty for crimes committed while drunk, and notes that power reveals character. **The Pittacus Multiplier (No Excuse from Self-Induced Blindness):** When someone causes damage while under the influence of a state they voluntarily entered—whether alcohol, hype, sleep-deprivation, or a "move fast and break things" frenzy—do not treat their impaired state as a mitigating factor. Double the accountability: once for the damage done, and once for deliberately disabling their own brakes beforehand.
— In our words · Source: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius)