Praecepta gerendae reipublicae

If, Menemachus, it is suitable to apply to anything at all the saying

No one of all the Achaeans finds fault with the words thou hast uttered, Nor will oppose them in speech; and yet thou hast reached no conclusion,

it may be applied to those philosophers who urge people to take lessons from them, but give no real instruction or advice; for they are like those who trim the lamps, but fail to pour in oil. Therefore, seeing that the desire has been aroused in you a Speaker of speeches to be, and also a doer of actions in your native State, as befits your noble birth, since you have not time to gain an understanding of a philosopher’s life in the open among affairs of State and public conflicts or to be a spectator of examples worked out in deed, not merely in word, and since you ask for some precepts of statecraft, I think it is not at all fitting that I should refuse, and I pray that the result may be worthy of your zeal and of my goodwill; and, as you requested, I have made use of a rather large variety of examples.