Book 4
7.50
He used to say that those in Hades would be more severely punished if the vessels in which they drew water were whole instead of being pierced with holes. To an importunate talker who wanted his help he said, I will satisfy your demand, if you will only get others to plead your cause and stay away yourself. On a voyage in bad company he fell in with pirates. When his companions said, We are lost if we are discovered, And I too, he replied, unless I am discovered. Conceit he styled a hindrance to progress. Referring to a wealthy miser he said, He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. Misers, he said, took care of property as if it belonged to them, but derived no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others. When we are young, said he, we are courageous, but it is only in old age that prudence is at its height.
7.51
Prudence, he said, excels the other virtues as much as sight excels the other senses. He used to say that we ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that, as he said, we all hope to reach it. To a slanderer who showed a grave face his words were, I don’t know whether you have met with ill luck, or your neighbour with good. He used to say that low birth made a bad partner for free speech, for— It cows a man, however bold his heart.Eur. Hipp. 424. We ought, he remarked, to watch our friends and see what manner of men they are, in order that we may not be thought to associate with the bad or to decline the friendship of the good.
