“In truth, however, it is not you alone who fail to distinguish those who make good use
 of things, but, I might almost say, the great majority of the Hellenes. For whenever they
 see or hear from others that any people devote themselves zealously to what appear to be
 good practices, they extol them and make many speeches about them, without knowing what
 will be the effects of this devotion. However, those who desire to form a correct judgement about such people should remain
 silent and have no opinion about them in the beginning, but when the time comes when they
 can observe them both speaking and taking action regarding both private and public
 affairs, then they should take accurate note of what they do in each case; and when men make good
 use of the things which they have practised, they should praise and honor them, but when
 they go wrong and do evil they should censure and abhor them and guard themselves against
 their ways, bearing in mind that things do not of their own nature either help or harm us,
 but that the manner in which they are used and employed by men is the cause of all the
 things which befall us. See Isoc.
 3.3-4 ; Isoc. 15.251-252 . One may grasp the
 truth of this from the following consideration: things which are in themselves always the same and never different are to some helpful
 and to others harmful. And yet it is not conceivable that each thing should have a nature
 which itself is contrary to itself and not the same. But, on the other hand, who that can
 reason correctly will not look upon it as natural that the consequences should be by no
 means the same in the case of those who act rightly and justly and in the case of those
 who act willfully and wickedly? “This same argument applies also to the matter of concord; for this is not different in
 its nature from the things which I have discussed; on the contrary, we shall find that it
 is in some instances the cause of very many blessings, but in others of the greatest evils
 and misfortunes. And I contend that the concord of the Spartans is of the latter sort. For
 I shall speak the truth even at the risk of appearing to some to say what is quite
 contrary to the general opinion.