To Demonicus

and rightly, too, for when we condemn those who deceive us in words alone, how, pray, can we deny the baseness of those who in their whole lives belie their promise?[*](Cf. Isoc. 12.243.) We should be right in judging that such men not only sin against themselves, but are traitors to fortune as well; for fortune places in their hands wealth and reputation and friends, but they, for their part, make themselves unworthy of the blessings which lie within their grasp.

And if a mortal may make conjecture of the thoughts of the gods, I think that they also have revealed very clearly in their treatment of their nearest kin how they are disposed to the good and base among men. For Zeus, who, as the myths relate and all men believe, was the father of Heracles and Tantalus, made the one immortal because of his virtue, and inflicted on the other the severest punishments because of his evil character.

With these examples before you, you should aspire to nobility of character, and not only abide by what I have said, but acquaint yourself with the best things in the poets as well, and learn from the other wise men also any useful lessons they have taught.[*](Cf. Isoc. 2.13.)

For just as we see the bee settling on all the flowers, and sipping the best from each, so also those who aspire to culture ought not to leave anything untasted, but should gather useful knowledge from every source.[*](The figure is used by Lucretius in the same sense, De rerum natura iii. 11-12: floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,/omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.) For hardly even with these pains can they overcome the defects of nature.