Daedalus taught him how to fly. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low, because the sea foam would soak the feathers. They had passed Samos, Delos and Lebynthos by the time the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar upward toward the sun. The blazing sun softened the wax that held the feathers together and they came off. Icarus quickly fell in the sea and drowned. His father cried, bitterly lamenting his own arts, and called the island near the place where
Golden mean (philosophy) flew up and up until the sun melted the wax off his wings. For not heeding the middle course, he fell into the sea and drowned. Another early elaboration is the Doric saying carved on the front of the temple at Delphi: ""Nothing in Excess"" ("Meden Agan"). The first work on the golden mean is sometimes attributed to Theano, wife of Pythagoras. To Cleobulus is attributed the maxim: "Mέτρον ἄριστον" "Moderation is best" Socrates teaches that a man must know "how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible." In education, Socrates asks