To Nicocles

In all your actions remember that you are a king, and take care never to do anything which is beneath the dignity of your station. Do not suffer your life to be at once wholly blotted out, but since you were allotted a perishable body, seek to leave behind an imperishable memorial of your soul.[*](Cf. Isoc. 5.134; Isoc. 1.39 and note.)

Make it your practice to talk of things that are good and honorable, that your thoughts may through habit come to be like your words. Whatever seems to you upon careful thought to be the best course, put this into effect. If there are men whose reputations you envy, imitate their deeds. Whatever advice you would give to your children, consent to follow it yourself. Make use of the precepts which I have given you or else seek better counsel.

Regard as wise men, not those who dispute subtly about trifling matters, but those who speak well on the great issues;[*](Cf. Isoc. 4.188-189 and note.) and not those who, being themselves in sorry straits, hold forth to others the promise of a prosperous fortune, but those who, while making modest claims for themselves, are able to deal with both affairs and men, and are not upset by the vicissitudes of existence, but have learned to bear moderately and bravely both the good and the evil chances of life.[*](Cf. Isoc. 1.42 and note.)

And do not be surprised that in what I have said there are many things which you know as well as I. This is not from inadvertence on my part, for I have realized all along that among so great a multitude both of mankind in general and of their rulers there are some who have uttered one or another of these precepts, some who have heard them, some who have observed other people put them into practice, and some who are carrying them out in their own lives.

But the truth is that in discourses of this sort we should not seek novelties, for in these discourses it is not possible to say what is paradoxical or incredible or outside the circle of accepted belief; but, rather, we should regard that man as the most accomplished in this field who can collect the greatest number of ideas scattered among the thoughts of all the rest and present them in the best form.

Moreover, this has been clear to me from the first, that while all men think that those compositions, whether in verse or prose, are the most useful which counsel us how to live, yet it is certainly not to them that they listen with greatest pleasure; nay, they feel about these just as they feel about the people who admonish them; for while they praise the latter, they choose for associates[*](Cf. Isoc. 1.45.) those who share in, and not those who would dissuade them from, their faults.