Kitap 3
1.16
Aye, but you would be doing yourself a great injury, said Tigranes, if you should put your friends to death just at the time when it was of the greatest advantage to you to have them. How said Cyrus, could men be of the greatest advantage to me just at the time when they were caught doing wrong?They would be, I think, if at that time theyThe acquisition of discretion should become discreet. For it seems to me to be true, Cyrus, said he, that without discretion there is no advantage at all in any other virtue; for what, he continued, could one do with a strong man or a brave man, or what with a rich man or a man of power in the state if he lacked discretion? But every friend is useful and every servant good, if he be endowed with discretion.
1.17
Do you mean to say, then, Cyrus answered, that in one day’s time your father has become discreet when he was indiscreet before? Yes said he, I do, indeed. By that you mean to say that discretion is an affection of the soul, as sorrow is, and not an acquisition.Xenophon makes Cyrus apparently accept the Socratic doctrine that wisdom and the other virtues are matters for learning, the results of study and practice—not a mood, like sorrow, anger, or any other emotion. For I do not suppose that a man could instantly pass from being indiscreet to being discreet, if indeed the one who is to be discreet must first have become wise.
