Letter 1564: Character is revealed not by what a person says but by what he does when no one is watching.
To Paulos.
For my part, I hold that man alone to be a king and a ruler who, having first ruled himself, has bound his subjects to himself by fairness and by kindness. But the rest must be called tyrants -- those who, out of the toils of others, procure unlawful pleasures for themselves.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Ἐκεῖνον μόνον ἔγωγε βασιλέα καὶ ἡγεμόνα εἶναι ἡγοῦμαι, ὃς ἄρξας ἑαυτοῦ τὸ ὑπήκοον ἐπιεικείᾳ καὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ ἀνήρτησατο. Τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους τυράννους κλητέον, τοὺς τοῖς ἑτέρων πόνοις ἑαυτοῖς ἡδονὰς ἀθεμίτους πορίζοντας.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern isidore pelusium workflow v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/PatrologiaGraeca
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