Gorgias

by Plato

That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the power of ruling over others in their several states.

rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.

Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?

Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them?

Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.

rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what they think best.

SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of her own? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like? POLUS: Certainly.

the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought;

For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong.

And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man.