Both Empedocles And Heraclitus Held It For

He Is A Fool Who Lets Slip A Bird In The Hand For A Bird In The Bush.

Euripides Was Wont To Say, Silence Was An Answer To A Wise Man; But We Seem To Have Greater Occasion For It In Our Dealing With Fools And Unreasonable Persons; For Men Of Breeding And Sense Will Be Satisfied With Reason And Fair Words.

Once When Phocion Had Delivered An Opinion Which Pleased The People, He Turned To His Friend And Said, "have I Not Unawares Spoken Some Mischievous Thing Or Other?"

Epaminondas Is Reported Wittily To Have Said Of A Good Man That Died About The Time Of The Battle Of Leuctra, "how Came He To Have So Much Leisure As To Die, When There Was So Much Stirring?

Character Is Long-standing Habit.