Some one praises your neighbour in your hearing, his talents, his
performances, his character, his motives, or something else that belongs
to your neighbour. Some one does that in your hearing who either does
not know you, or who wishes to torture and expose you, and you fall
straight into the snare thus set for you, and begin at once to belittle,
depreciate, detract from, and run down your neighbour, who has been too
much praised for your peace of mind and your self-control. You insinuate
something to his disadvantage and dishonour. You quote some authority
you have heard to his hurt. And so on past all our power to picture you.
For detraction has a thousand devices taught to it by the master of all
such devices, wherewith to drag down and defile the great and the good.
But with all you can say or do, you cannot for many days get out of your
mind the heart-poisoning praise you heard spoken of your envied
neighbour. Never praise any potter's pots in the hearing of another
potter, said the author of the _Nicomachean Ethics_. Aristotle said
potter's pots, but he really all the time was thinking of a philosopher's
books; only he said potter's pots to draw off his readers' attention from
himself.
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