mire and
love what is valuable and expedient instead of what is vain and
superfluous. Let so much suffice on the question proposed.

Sec. XVIII. It remains to me now to point out, what our subject next
demands and calls for, how everyone may avoid unseasonable self-praise.
For there is a wonderful incentive to talking about oneself in
self-love, which is frequently strongly implanted in those who seem to
have only moderate aspirations for fame. For as it is one of the rules
to preserve good health to avoid altogether places where sickness is, or
to exercise the greatest precaution if one must go there, so talking
about oneself has its slippery times and places that draw it on on any
pretext. For first, when others are praised, as I said before, ambition
makes people talk about themselves, and a certain desire and impulse for
fame which is hard to check bites and tickles that ambition, especially
if the other person is praised for the same things or less important
things than the hearer thinks he is a proficient in. For as hungry
people have their appetite more inflamed and sharpened by seeing others
eat, so the praise of one's neighbours makes those who eagerly desire
fame to blaze out into jealousy.

Sec. XIX. In the second place the narration of things done successfully and
to people's mind entices many unawares to boasting and bragging in their
joy; for falling into conversation about their victories, or success in
state affairs, or their words or deeds commended by great men, they
cannot keep themselves within bounds. With this kind of self-laudation
you may see that soldiers and sailors are most taken. To be in this
state of mind also frequently happens to those who have returned from
important posts and responsible duties, for in their mention of
illustrious men and men of royal rank they insert the encomiums they
have passed on themselves, and do not so much think they are praising
themselves as merely repeating the praises of others about themselves.
Others think their hearers do not detect them at all of self-praise,
when they recount the greeting and welcome and kindness they have
received from kings and emperors, but only imagine them to be
enumerating the courtesy and kindliness of those great personages. So we
must be very much on our guard in praising others to free ourselves from
all suspicion of self-love and self-recommendation, and not to seem to
be really praising ourselves "under pretext of Patroclu