the seventh letter   

The time of my first visit to Sicily and my stay there was taken
up with all these incidents. On a later occasion I left home and again
came on an urgent summons from Dionysios. But before giving the
motives and particulars of my conduct then and showing how suitable
and right it was, I must first, in order that I may not treat as the
main point what is only a side issue, give you my advice as to what
your acts should be in the present position of affairs; afterwards, to
satisfy those who put the question why I came a second time, I will
deal fully with the facts about my second visit; what I have now to
say is this.
He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to
health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner
of life, and if the patient is willing to obey him, he may go on to
give him other advice. But if he is not willing, I shall consider
one who declines to advise such a patient to be a man and a physician,
and one who gives in to him to be unmanly and unprofessional. In the
same way with regard to a State, whether it be under a single ruler or
more than one, if, while the government is being carried on
methodically and in a right course, it asks advice about any details
of policy, it is the part of a wise man to advise such people. But
when men are travelling altogether outside the path of right
government and flatly refuse to move in the right path, and start by
giving notice to their adviser that he must leave the government alone
and make no change in it under penalty of death-if such men should
order their counsellors to pander to their wishes and desires and to
advise them in what way their object may most readily and easily be
once for all accomplished, I should consider as unmanly one who
accepts the duty of giving such forms of advice, and one who refuses
it to be a true man.
Holding these views, whenever anyone consults me about any of the
weightiest matters affecting his own life, as, for instance, the
acquisition of property or the proper treatment of body or mind, if it
seems to me that his daily life rests on any system, or if he seems
likely to listen to advice about the things on which he consults me, I
advise him with readiness, and do not content myself with giving him a
merely perfunctory answer. But if a man does not consult me at all, or
evidently does not intend to follow my advice, I do not take the
initiative in advising such a man, and will not use compulsion to him,
even if he be my own son. I would advise a slave under such
circumstances, and would use compulsion to him if he were unwilling.
To a father or mother I do not think that piety allows one to offer
compulsion, unless they are suffering from an attack of insanity;
and if they are following any regular habits of life which please them
but do not please me, I would not offend them by offering useless,
advice, nor would I flatter them or truckle to them, providing them
with the means of satisfying desires which I myself would sooner die
than cherish. The wise man should go through life with the same
attitude of mind towards his country. If she should appear to him to
be following a policy which is not a good one, he should say so,
provided that his words are not likely either to fall on deaf ears
or to lead to the loss of his own life. But force against his native
land he should not use in order to bring about a change of
constitution, when it is not possible for the best constitution to
be introduced without driving men into exile or putting them to death;
he should keep quiet and offer up prayers for his own welfare and
for that of his country.
These are the principles in accordance with which I should advise
you, as also, jointly with Dion, I advised Dionysios, bidding him in
the first place to live his daily life in a way that would make him as
far as possible master of himself and able to gain faithful friends
and supporters, in order that he might not have the same experience as
his father. For his father, having taken under his rule many great
cities of Sicily which had been utterly destroyed by the barbarians,
was not able to found them afresh and to establish in them trustworthy