Plato: The Complete Works (31 Books) (Illustrated)

by Plato

For I am more than seventy years of age,

The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were made by them in the days when you were more impressible than you are now—in childhood,

‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’

Aristophanes,

Callias,

I found that the poets were the worst possible interpreters of their own writings.

Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.

the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.

my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon,

Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and not in spirits or demigods?

For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.

I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.

The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

honourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.

How did you escape, Socrates?—(I should explain that an engagement had taken place at Potidaea not long before we came away, of which the news had only just reached Athens.)

Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the approach of death.

But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.

Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and to follow whither he leads.

friend Chaerephon

for he would keep us loitering in the Agora.

Socrates: Ask him who he is. Chaerephon: What do you mean? Socrates: I mean such a question as would elicit from him, if he had been a maker of shoes, the answer that he is a cobbler. Do you understand?

is our friend Callicles right in saying that you undertake to answer any questions which you are asked?

Gorgias: Quit...

Gorgias: Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art. Socrates: Then I am to call you a rhetorician? Gorgias: Yes, Socrates, and a good one too,

Socrates: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of discourse, and all the other arts treat of discourse, do you not call them arts of rhetoric?

Gorgias: Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to do with some sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying that rhetoric treats of discourse.

Gorgias: Yes.

I wish these people would understand how much they're being set up for failure.

Gorgias: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my meaning.

I want to read a dialogue where Socrates gets shut the fuck down from the get-go xD

Gorgias: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

Socrates: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous;

I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than a reasoner.

There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please to refresh my memory a little; did you say-"in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant"?

Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other-neither