Themistocles

Surveying once the dead bodies of the Barbarians which had been cast up along the sea, he saw that they were decked with golden bracelets and collars, and yet passed on by them himself, while to a friend who followed he pointed them out and said: Help thyself, thou art not Themistocles. Again, to one who had once been a beauty, Antiphates, and who had at that time treated him disdainfully, but afterwards courted him because of the reputation he had got, Young man, said he, ’tis late, ’tis true, but both of us have come to our senses.

Also he used to say of the Athenians that they did not really honor and admire him for himself, but treated him for all the world like a plane-tree, running under his branches for shelter when it stormed, but when they had fair weather all about them, plucking and docking him. And when he was told by the Seriphian that it was not due to himself that he had got reputation, but to his city, True, said he, but neither should I, had I been a Seriphian, have achieved reputation, nor wouldst thou, hadst thou been an Athenian.