The Ideal Man Is His Own Best

The Light Of The Day Is Followed By Night, As A Shadow Follows A Body.

All Men, Or Most Men, Wish What Is Noble But Choose What Is Profitable; And While It Is Noble To Render A Service Not With An Eye To Receiving One In Return, It Is Profitable To Receive One. One Ought Therefore, If One Can, To Return The Equivalent Of Services Received, And To Do So Willingly; For One Ought Not To Make A Man One's Friend If One Is Unwilling To Return His Favors.

The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

When People Are Friends, They Have No Need Of Justice, But When They Are Just, They Need Friendship In Addition.

Greatness Of Soul Seems Therefore To Be As It Were A Crowning Ornament Of The Virtues; It Enhances Their Greatness, And It Cannot Exist Without Them. Hence It Is Hard To Be Truly Great-souled, For Greatness Of Soul Is Impossible Without Moral Nobility.