How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World

by Donald J. Robertson

“You see,” said Socrates, “either death is nothing, an endless sleep, in which case it is not evil but indifferent, or our soul continues to exist, and we have the opportunity to do philosophy, in which case death is something good, or at least no worse than living. Indeed,” he added, “we have reason enough to hope that it may be better than our life on earth, as we will have the opportunity to experience a realm purified of earthly pains and pleasures, in which I like to think we may have the opportunity to converse with the great men of the past, including your famous ancestors, and perhaps even with the gods themselves. Death is therefore either something indifferent or something good,” he said, “and in either case it is something the wise man fears least of all.”