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İngilizce İngilizce

3 Now you, I know, following this reasoning, disdain my coming forward, and are confident that with this power you will hold all Hellas under your control. But as for myself, it is because of these very things that I am anxious; for I observe that those cities which think they are in the best circumstances are wont to adopt the worst policies, and that those which feel the most secure are most often involved in danger.

4 The cause of this is that nothing of either good or of evil visits mankind unmixed, but that riches and power are attended and followed by folly, and folly in turn by licence;See General Introduction p. xxxiii. whereas poverty and lowliness are attended by sobriety and great moderation;

5 so that it is hard to decide which of these lots one should prefer to bequeath to one’s own children. For we shall find that from a lot which seems to be inferior men’s fortunes generally advance to a better condition,Cf. Isoc. 6.103 ff. whereas from one which appears to be superior they are wont to change to a worse.