Letter 1516: Virtue must be practiced with all one's strength — not merely admired from a distance.

To one without a name [the recipient is unnamed in the manuscript heading]. Even teachers and fathers, having renounced flattery as a thing that does the greatest harm and works ruin, hold out the threat of fear over others - some over their pupils, others over their children. We too, if we are prudent, ought rather to turn away from those who flatter us than from those who insult us. For honor of this kind brings greater ruin than insult upon those who are not on their guard; and it is harder to gain mastery over this than over that other passion.

Εἰ καὶ διδάσκαλοι καὶ πατέρες τῆς κολακείας ἀφ- έμενοι, ὡς τὰ μέγιστα βλαπτούσης καὶ λυμαινομένης, φόδον ἐπανατείνονται, οἱ μὲν τοῖς φοιτηταῖς, οἱ δὲ ταῖς παισί· χρὴ καὶ ἡμᾶς, εἴγε σωφρονοῦμεν, μᾶλ- λον τῶν ὑβριζόντων τοὺς κολακεύοντας ἀποστρέφε- σθαι. Μείζονα γὰρ ἔχει λύμην τῆς ὕβρεως ἡ τοιαύτη τιμὴ τοῖς μὴ προσέχουσι· καὶ δύσκολον ταύτου κρα- τῆσαι ἢ ἐκείνου τοῦ πάθους.