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Why, what propriety is there in any one’s punishing others for viciousness or indolence, when he himself is bad?
And think also on this: we have made arrangements 1 to keep many men to guard our homes and our lives; and how would it be otherwise than base in us to think that we have a right to enjoy security protected by other men’s spears, while we ourselves do not take up the spear for our own defence? And yet we must be fully aware that there is no such safeguard as for a man to be good and brave himself; this guard must be ever at our side. But if a man lack virtue, neither is it fitting that aught else be well with him.
And think also on this: we have made arrangements 1 to keep many men to guard our homes and our lives; and how would it be otherwise than base in us to think that we have a right to enjoy security protected by other men’s spears, while we ourselves do not take up the spear for our own defence? And yet we must be fully aware that there is no such safeguard as for a man to be good and brave himself; this guard must be ever at our side. But if a man lack virtue, neither is it fitting that aught else be well with him.
Cyropaedia. Xenophon. Walter Miller (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1914.
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