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which no other man has contemned, and have deplored my fortune, although I have had no complaint against it other than that the philosophy which I have chosen to pursue has been the object of unfortunate and unscrupulous attacks.1 As to my nature, however, I realized that it was not robust and vigorous enough for public affairs and that it was not adequate nor altogether suited to public discourse, and that, furthermore, although it was better able to form a correct judgement of the truth of any matter than are those who claim to have exact knowledge,2 yet for expounding the truth before an assemblage of many people it was, if I may say so, the least competent in all the world.
1 Such as are described at the beginning of the Isoc. 15..
2 See General Introduction; Isoc. 13.7 ff.
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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