On The Refusal Of A Pension (16-20)

For insolence is not likely to be shown by poor men laboring in the utmost indigence, but by those who possess far more than the necessaries of life; nor by men disabled in body, but by those who have most reason to rely on their own strength; nor by those already advanced in years, but by those who are still young and have a youthful turn of mind.

For the wealthy purchase with their money escape from the risks that they run, whereas the poor are compelled to moderation by the pressure of their want. The young are held to merit indulgence from their elders; but if their elders are guilty of offence, both ages unite in reproaching them.

The strong are at liberty to insult whomsoever they will with impunity, but the weak are unable either to beat off their aggressors when insulted, or to get the better of their victims if they choose to insult. Hence it seems to me that my accuser was not serious in speaking of my insolence, but was only jesting; his purpose was, not to persuade you that such is my nature, but to set me in a comic light, as a fine stroke of fancy.

For each of you is in the habit of paying a call at either a perfumer’s or a barber’s or a shoemaker’s shop, or wherever he may chance to go, —in most cases, it is to the tradesmen who have set up nearest the marketplace, and in fewest, to those who are farthest from it. So if any of you should brand with roguery the men who visit my shop, clearly you must do the same to those who pass their time in the shops of others; and if to them, to all the Athenians: for you are all in the habit of paying a call and passing your time at some shop or other.