When a public lecturer spoke at considerable length about bravery, he burst out laughing; and when the man said, ‘Why do you laugh, Cleomenes, at hearing a man speak about bravery, and that, too, when you are a king ?’ ‘Because, my friend,’ he said, ‘if it had been a swallow speaking about it, T should have done the same thing, but if it had been an eagle, I should have kept very quiet.’