or secure his judgment. So Zeno knew how to speak for himself, when the great number of Theophrastus’s scholars was opposed to the fewness of his, saying, His chorus is indeed greater than mine, but mine is sweeter. And Phocion, while Leosthenes yet prospered, being asked by the orators what good he had done the city, replies: Nothing but this, that in my government of you there have been no funeral orations, but all the deceased were buried in the sepulchres of their ancestors. So Crates, by way of antithesis to this epitaph of the glutton, What I have eat is mine; in words my will I’ve had, and of my lust have took my fill, well opposes these, What I have learnt is mine; I’ve had my thought, And me the Muses noble truths have taught. This kind of praise is amiable and advantageous, teaching to admire and love convenient and profitable things instead of the superfluous and vain. Thus much for the stating of the question, in what cases and how far self-praise may be inoffensive. 18. Now the order of the discourse requires to show how an uncomely and unseasonable affectation of praise may be avoided. Discourse of a man’s self usually sallies from self-love, as from its fort, and is there observed to lay wait, even in those who are vulgarly thought free enough from ambition. Therefore, as it is one of the rules of health to avoid dangerous and unwholesome places, or being in them to take the greater care, so ought there to be a like rule concerning converse and speaking of one’s self. For this kind of talk has slippery occasions, into which we unawares and indiscernibly are apt to fall. For first (as is above said), ambition usually intrudes into the praises of others with some flourishing remarks to adorn herself. For let a person be commended by his equal or inferior, the mind of the ambitious is tickled and rubbed at the hearing of his praise, and immediately he is hurried by an intemperate desire and precipitation after the like; as the appetite of the hungry is sharpened by seeing others eat.