state? For I cannot indeed assent to the remark of Pericles to his friend, who asked him to bear false witness in his favour even to the extent of perjury, "I am your friend as far as the altar." He went too far. But he that has long accustomed himself never to go against his convictions in praising a speaker, or clapping a singer, or laughing at a dull buffoon, will never go to this length, nor say to some impudent fellow in such matters, "Swear on my behalf, bear false witness, pronounce an unjust verdict."
§ vii. So also we ought to refuse people that want to borrow money of us, from being accustomed to say No in small and easily refused matters. Thus Archelaus, king of the Macedonians, being asked at supper for a gold cup by a man who thought Receive the finest word in the language, bade a boy give it to Euripides,13 and gazing intently on the man said to him, "You are fit to ask, and not to receive, and he is fit to receive without asking." Thus did he make judgement and not bashfulness the arbiter of his gifts and favours. Yet we oftentimes pass over our friends who are both deserving and in need, and give to others who continually and impudently importune us, not from the wish to give but from the inability to say No. So the older Antigonus, being frequently annoyed by Bion, said, "Give a talent to Bion and necessity." Yet he was of all the kings most clever and ingenious at getting rid of such importunity. For on one occasion, when a Cynic asked him for a drachma, he replied, "That would be too little for a king to give;"14 and when the Cynic rejoined, "Give me then a talent," he met him with, "That would be too much for a Cynic to receive."15 Diogenes indeed used to go round begging to the statues in the Ceramicus, and when people expressed their astonishment said he was practising how to bear refusals. And we must practise ourselves in small matters, and exercise ourselves in little things, with a view to refusing people who importune us, or would receive from us when inconvenient, that we may be able to avoid great miscarriages. For no one, as Demosthenes says,16 if he expends his resources on unnecessary things, will have means for necessary ones. And our disgrace is greatly increased, if we are deficient in what is noble, and abound in what is trivial.