Isocrates Quotes
Choose two moments only for speaking, the one when you know the subject well, the other when it is necessary to speak about it. These are the only occasions on which speech is better than silence; on all others it is better to be silent than to speak.
Isocrates (Letter to Demonicus)
Make your manners an silence you greatest reproofs. Be, as I have said, candid and open to all ; but familiar only with the sincere and good : for, by doing so, you will offend none, and have the choicest friends.
Isocrates (Letter to Demonicus)
If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public.
Isocrates
Hate those who flatter as much as those who deceive, for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them. If you accept those friends who court your favour from the worst motives, you will during your lifetime be without those who are willing to incur your displeasure from the best motives.
Isocrates (Letter to Demonicus)
Our city of Athens has so far surpassed other men in its wisdom and its power of expression that its pupils have become the teachers of the world. It has caused the name of Hellene to be regarded as no longer a mark of racial origin but of intelligence, so that men are called Hellenes because they have shared our common education rather than that they share in our common ethnic origin.
Isocrates
