, not for the most
powerful, but for the most ardent; and if he hated, it was not him
who, being evil entreated, retaliated, but one who, having had
kindness done to him, seemed incapable of gratitude.

He rejoiced when sordid greed was rewarded with poverty; and still
more if he might himself enrich a righteous man, since his wish was to
render uprightness more profitable than iniquity.

He made it a practice to associate with all kinds of people, but to be
intimate only with the best.

As he listened to the praise of this man, or the censure of another,
he felt that he learnt quite as much about the character of the
speakers themselves as of those whom they discussed.

To be cheated by a friend was scarcely censurable, but he could find
no condemnation strong enough for him who was outwitted by a foe. Or
again, to dupe the incredulous might argue wit, but to take in the
unsuspecting was veritably a crime.

The praise of a critic who had courage to point out his defects
pleased him; and plainness of speech excited in him no hostility. It
was against the cunning rather of the secretive person that he guarded
himself, as against a hidden snare.

The calumniator he detested more than the robber or the thief, in
proportion as the loss of friends is greater than the loss of
money. (2)

(2) Mr. R. W. Taylor aptly quotes "Othello," III. iii. 157--

"Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."

The errors of private persons he bore with gently, but those of rulers
he looked upon as grave; since the mischief wrought in the one case
was so small, and so large in the other. The proper attribute of
royalty was, he maintained, not an avoidance of responsibility, but a
constant striving after nobleness. (3)

(3) On the word {kalokagathia} so translated, see Demosth. 777, 5.

Whilst he would not suffer any image (4) of his bodily form to be set
up (though many wished to present him with a statue), he never ceased
elaborating what should prove the monument of his spirit, holding that
the former is the business of a statuary, the latter of one's self.
Wealth might procure the one, he said, but only a good man could
produce the other.

(4) See Plut. "Ages." ii. (Clough, iv. p. 2); also Plut. "Ap. Lac." p.
115;