VI. Xenophanes being jeered for refusing to play at a forbidden game, answered: "I do not fear my money, but my reputation: they that make laws, must keep them." A commendable saying.
VII. Antigonus being taken sick, he said, it was a warning from God to instruct him of his mortality. A poet flattered him with the title of the Son of God, he answered, "My servant knows the contrary." Another sycophant telling him, that the will of kings is the rule of justice: "No," saith he, "rather justice is the rule of the will of kings;" and being pressed by his minions to put a garrison into Athens, to hold the Greeks in subjection, he answered, "he had not a stronger garrison than the affections of his people."
VIII. Themistocles, after all the honour of his life, sits down with this conclusion, "That the way to the grave is more desirable than the way to worldly honours." His daughter being courted by one of little wit and great wealth, and another of little wealth and great goodness; he chose the poor man for his son-in-law: "For," saith he, "I will rather have a man without money, than money without a man;" reckoning, that not money, but worth, makes the man. Being told by Symmachus, that he would teach him the art of memory; he gravely answered, he had rather learn the art of forgetfulness: adding, he could remember enough, but many things he could not forget, which were necessary to be forgotten: as the honours, glories, pleasures, and conquests he had spent his days in: too apt to transport to vain glory.
IX. Aristides, a wise and just Greek, of greatest honour and trust with the Athenians;--he was a great enemy to cabals in government: the reason he renders is, "Because," saith he, "I would not be obliged to authorize injustice." He so much hated covetousness, though he was thrice chosen treasurer of Athens, that he lived and died poor, and that of choice: for being therefore reproached by a rich usurer, he answered, "Thy riches hurt thee more than my poverty hurts me." Being once banished by a contrary faction in the state, he prayed to God, that the affairs of his country might go so well, as never to need his return: which however caused him presently to be recalled: whereupon he told them, that he was not troubled for his exile with respect to himself, but the honour of his country. Themistocles, their general, had a project to propose, to render Athens mistress of Greece, but it required secrecy: the people obliged him to communicate it to Aristides, whose judgment they would follow. Aristides having privately heard it from Themistocles, publicly answered the people, "True there was nothing more advantageous, nothing more unjust:" which quashed the project.