Letter 32: Procopius tells Diodorus that his modesty hides his own virtue.

How much good treatment noble Zacharias enjoyed from you he himself often tells, and I too have heard it. Your letters also made it clear, though they said less than the truth, so that you might appear, I think, to know how to do good rather than how to talk about it. That is not poverty in the speaker, but disciplined modesty hiding its own virtue. As for your eagerness toward me, I proclaim it to everyone even before it happens, and nothing unfamiliar comes to meet me. Whatever I hope for happens; though my hope is always great, experience never refutes it. I would like to say even more. But somehow you think I am joking, and so I will be silent. Your moderation is so great that you think even a truthful praiser is joking. Yet when I joke I do not depart from truth, and when I tell the truth I do not depart from joking, whenever my speech is addressed to those who love me. So be confident in my praise: you are not altogether among those I have cast aside.

Διοδώρωι Ὅσης ἀπέλαυσε παρ' ὑμῶν τῆς εὐποιίας ὁ καλὸς Ζαχαρίας, αὐτός τε διηγεῖται πολλάκις καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀκηκόαμεν, ἐδήλου δὲ καὶ τὰ ὑμέτερα γράμματα. πλὴν ἀλλὰ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐλάττονα, ὅπως ἄν, οἶμαι, δόξῃς τὰ χρηστὰ ποιεῖν εἰδέναι μᾶλλον ἢ λέγειν. ὅπερ οὐκ ἀπορία τοῦ λέγοντος, ἀλλὰ σώφρων αἰδὼς τὴν ἑαυτῆς ἀρετὴν ἐπικρύπτουσα. τὴν δὲ σὴν εἰς ἡμᾶς σπουδὴν καὶ πρὶν γενέσθαι πᾶσι βοῶ, καὶ ξένον οὐδὲν ἡμῖν ἀπαντᾷ· ἃ γὰρ ἂν ἐλπίσωμεν γίνεται, καὶ μεγάλης οὔσης ἀεὶ τῆς ἐλπίδος, οὐκ ἐλέγχει ταύτην ἡ πεῖρα. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν καὶ πλείω λέγειν ἐθέλω· σὺ δέ με παίζειν οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως ἡγῇ, καὶ σιγήσομαι· τοσοῦτο γάρ σου τὸ μέτριον, ὡς καὶ τὸν ἀληθῶς ἐπαινοῦντα παίζειν ἡγῇ. ἐγὼ δὲ οὔτε παίζων τῆς ἀληθείας ἐξίσταμαι, οὔτε ἀληθεύων τοῦ παίζειν, ἡνίκα δή μοι πρὸς τοὺς φιλοῦντας ὁ λόγος. ὥστε θάρρει τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐπαίνους· οὐδὲ γὰρ παντελῶς τῶν ἀπερριμμένων εἶ παρ' ἐμοί.