Kitap 4
7.49
He used repeatedly to say that to grant favours to another was preferable to enjoying the favours of others. For the latter means ruin to both body and soul. He even abused Socrates, declaring that, if he felt desire for Alcibiades and abstained, he was a fool; if he did not, his conduct was in no way remarkable. The road to Hades, he used to say, was easy to travel; at any rate men passed away with their eyes shut. He said in censure of Alcibiades that in his boyhood he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands. When the Athenians were absorbed in the practice of rhetoric, he taught philosophy at Rhodes. To some one who found fault with him for this he replied, How can I sell barley when what I brought to market is wheat?
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.
