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[16]

“Aye, but you would be doing yourself a great injury,” said Tigranes, “if you should put your friends to death just at the time when it was of the greatest advantage to you to have them.”

“How,” said Cyrus, “could men be of the greatest advantage to me just at the time when they were caught doing wrong?”

“They would be, I think, if at that time they1 should become discreet. For it seems to me to be true, Cyrus,” said he, “that without discretion there is no advantage at all in any other virtue; for what,” he continued, “could one do with a strong man or a brave man, or what with a rich man or a man of power in the state if he lacked discretion? But every friend is useful and every servant good, if he be endowed with discretion.”

1 The acquisition of discretion

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  • Cross-references to this page (2):
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.3
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
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