"I know that what I'm going to do is bad,"[666]
is especially applicable to people that importune us, when one is going to perjure oneself, or deliver an unjust verdict, or vote for a measure that is inexpedient, or borrow money for someone who will never pay it back.
§ XII. And so repentance follows more closely upon bashfulness than upon any emotion, and that not afterwards, but in the very act. For we are vexed with ourselves when we give, and ashamed when we perjure ourselves, and get ill-fame from our advocacies, and are put to the blush, when we cannot fulfil our promises. For frequently, from inability to say No, we promise impossibilities to persevering applicants, as introductions at court, and audiences with princes, from reluctance or want of nerve to say, "The king does not know us, others have his regard far more." But Lysander, when he was out of favour with Agesilaus, though he was thought to have very great influence with him owing to his great reputation, was not ashamed to dismiss suitors, and bid them go and pay their court to others who had more influence with the king. For not to be able to do everything carries no disgrace with it, but to undertake and try and force your way to what you are unable to do, or unqualified by nature for, is in addition to the disgrace incurred a task full of trouble.
§ XIII. To take another element into consideration, all seemly and modest requests we ought readily to comply with, not bashfully but heartily, whereas in injurious or unreasonable requests we ought ever to remember the conduct of Zeno, who, meeting a young man he knew walking very quietly near a wall, and learning from him that he was trying to get out of the way of a friend who wanted him to perjure himself on his behalf, said to him, "O stupid fellow, what do you tell me? Is he not afraid or ashamed to press you to what is not right? And dare not you stand up boldly against him for what is right?" For he that said "villainy is no bad weapon against villainy"[667] taught people the bad practice of standing on one's defence against vice by imitating it; but to get rid of those who shamelessly and unblushingly importune us by their own effrontery, and not to gratify the immodest in their disgraceful desires through false modesty, is the right and proper conduct of sensible people.