Truth is the beginning of every good thing,both to Gods and men;and he who would be blessed and happy,should be from the first a partaker of the truth,that he may live a true man as long as possible,for then he can be trusted;but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood,and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool.Neither condition is enviable,for the untrustworthy and ignorant has no friend,and as time advances he becomes known,and lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbed age when life is on the wane:so that,whether his children or friends are alive or not,he is equally solitary.-Worthy of honour is he who does no injustice,and of more than twofold honour,if he not only does no injustice himself,but hinders others from doing any;the first may count as one man,the second is worth many men,because he informs the rulers of the injustice of others.And yet more highly to be esteemed is he who co-operates with the rulers in correcting the citizens as far as he can-he shall be proclaimed the great and perfect citizen,and bear away the palm of virtue.The same praise may be given about temperance and wisdom,and all other goods which may be imparted to others,as well as acquired by a man for himself;he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men,and he who is willing,yet is not able,may be allowed the second place;but he who is jealous and will not,if he can help,allow others to partake in a friendly way of any good,is deserving of blame:the good,however,which he has,is not to be undervalued by us because it is possessed by him,but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our power.Let every man,then,freely strive for the prize of virtue,and let there be no envy.For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of states-he himself contends in the race,blasting the fair fame of no man;but the envious,who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming others,is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue,and reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them.And so he makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of virtue,and diminishes her glory as far as in him lies.Now every man should be valiant,but he should also be gentle.
From the cruel,or hardly curable,or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by others,a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and conquering,and by never ceasing to punish them;and no man who is not of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this.As to the actions of those who do evil,but whose evil is curable,in the first place,let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will.For no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of evils,and least of all in the most honourable part of himself.And the soul,as we said,is of a truth deemed by all men the most honourable.In the soul,then,which is the most honourable part of him,no one,if he could help,would admit,or allow to continue the greatest of evils.The unrighteous and vicious are always to be pitied in any case;and one can afford to forgive as well as pity him who is curable,and refrain and calm one's anger,not getting into a passion,like a woman,and nursing ill-feeling.But upon him who is incapable of reformation and wholly evil,the vials of our wrath should be poured out;wherefore I say that good men ought,when occasion demands,to be both gentle and passionate.
Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate,and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting;mean,what is expressed in the saying that "Every man by nature is and ought to be his own friend."Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences;for the lover is blinded about the beloved,so that he judges wrongly of the just,the good,and the honourable,and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth.But he who would be a great man ought to regard,not himself or his interests,but what is just,whether the just act be his own or that of another.Through a similar error men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom,and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing,think that we know all things;and because we will not let others act for us in what we do not know,we are compelled to act amiss ourselves.
Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love,and condescend to follow a better man than himself,not allowing any false shame to stand in the way.There are also minor precepts which are often repeated,and are quite as useful;a man should recollect them and remind himself of them.For when a stream is flowing out,there should be water flowing in too;and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing.Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or tears,and should exhort his neighbour to do the same;he should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy,and seek to behave with propriety,whether the genius of his good fortune remains with him,or whether at the crisis of his fate,when he seems to be mounting high and steep places,the Gods oppose him in some of his enterprises.Still he may ever hope,in the case of good men,that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will lessen,and that present evils he will change for the better;and as to the goods which are the opposite of these evils,he will not doubt that they will be added to them,and that they will be fortunate.Such should be men's hopes,and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one another,never losing an opportunity,but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves and others of all these things,both in jest and earnest.
Enough has now been said of divine matters,both as touching the practices which men ought to follow,and as to the sort of persons who they ought severally to be.But of human things we have not as yet spoken,and we must;for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods.