Now I might have spoken passably about even these matters, since I knew, in the first place, that it is easier to treat copiously in cursory fashion occurrences of the past than intelligently to discuss the future and, in the second place, that all men are more grateful to those who praise them than to those who advise them Cf. Isoc. Letter 2.1 . —for the former they approve as being well—disposed, but the latter,