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Manage the city as you would your ancestral estate: in the matter of its appointments, splendidly and royally; in the matter of its revenues, strictly, in order that you may possess the good opinion of your people and at the same time have sufficient means. Display magnificence, not in any of the extravagant outlays which straightway vanish, but in the ways which I have mentioned, and in the beauty of the objects which you possess, and in the benefits which you bestow upon your friends; for such expenditures will not be lost to you while you live, and you will leave to those who follow you a heritage worth more than what you have spent.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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