Letter 220: Most people are slow to do what is genuinely good, and quick to do what is harmful.

To Theon. Those who look to what is profitable, and judge it right to keep silent, do not put forward the greatness of the matters being expounded as the cause of their speechlessness; rather, they set out to contend on behalf of the truth, before which even those most skilled at speaking shrink from stripping for the contest. For even if they have praised noble things unworthily, they have at least praised them sufficiently, and so they leave behind, even for the people who come after them, a token of their own judgment, which inclines toward the things that cannot be fully recounted.

Οἱ μὲν εἰς ὠφέλειαν βλέποντες, ἡσυχάζεσθαι δικαιοῦντες, οὐ τὸ μέγεθος τῶν καθηρουμένων, ὡς ἀφωνίας αἴτιον, προβάλλονται, ἀλλ' ἀγωνιάζειν ἐπιχειροῦσι τὴν ἀλήθειαν, πρὸς ἣν καὶ οἱ δεινότατοι λέγειν ἀποδύσασθαι ὀκνοῦσιν. Εἰ γὰρ καὶ ἀπαξίως, ἀλλὰ γε ἀποχρώντως τὰ καλὰ ἐπαινέσαντες, τεκμήριον τῆς ἑαυτῶν γνώμης τῆς ἐπὶ τὰ ἀδιαφήγητα ῥεπούσης, καὶ τοῖς μετὰ ταῦτα ἀνθρώποις ἐγκαταλείπουσι.