To Nicocles (23-26)

Deliver your citizens from their many fears, and be not willing that dread should beset men who have done no wrong; for even as you dispose others toward you, so you will feel toward them. Do nothing in anger, but simulate anger when the occasion demands it. Show yourself stern by overlooking nothing which men do, but kind by making the punishment less than the offense.

Be not willing to show your authority by harshness or by undue severity in punishment, but by causing your subjects one and all to defer to your judgement and to believe that your plans for their welfare are better than their own. Be warlike in your knowledge of war and in your preparations for it, but peaceful in your avoidance of all unjust aggression.[*] Deal with weaker states as you would expect stronger states to deal with you.[*]

Do not be contentious in all things, but only where it will profit you to have your own way. Do not think men weak who yield a point to their own advantage, but rather those who prevail to their own injury. Do not consider that the great souls are those who undertake more than they can achieve, but those who, having noble aims, are also able to accomplish whatever they attempt.

Emulate, not those who have most widely extended their dominion, but those who have made best use of the power they already possess;[*] and believe that you will enjoy the utmost happiness, not if you rule over the whole world at the price of fears and dangers and baseness, but rather if, being the man you should be, and continuing to act as at the present moment, you set your heart on moderate achievements and fail in none of them.