IV, V. (4)

The same person being asked, “Wherein do the diligent have the advantage of the slothful?” answered, “Wherein the pious have the advantage of the impious: — in good hopes.”

Walls give to cities, and education to minds, ornament and security.

When a young man was giving himself airs in a public place, and saying, that he had grown wise by conversing with many wise men: “I have conversed too,” answered somebody, “with many rich men, but I have not grown rich.”

Socrates, being sent for by Archelaus, as designing to make him a rich man, returned him this answer: “Four quarts of meal are sold at Athens for five denarii, and the fountains run with water. If what I have is not sufficient for me, yet I am sufficiently able to make a shift with that; and thus it becomes sufficient for me. Do you not perceive that it makes no difference in the goodness of Polus’s voice, whether he performs the part of Œdipus in his regal state, or whether he is a wanderer and a beggar at Colonus? And shall a brave man appear worse than Polus, and not perform well in whatever part is imposed upon him by the Deity? Shall he not imitate Odysseus, who made no worse figure in rags than in a fine purple robe?”