Nick’s Reviews > The Last Days of Socrates > Status Update

The man who pursues the truth by applying his pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object, cutting himself off as much as possible from his eyes and ears and virtually all the rest of his as body, as an impediment which, if present, prevents the soul trom attaining to the truth and clear thinking? Is not this the person, Simmias, who will reach the goal of reality, if anybody can?

But my dear Crito, why should we pay so much attention to what 'most people' think? The most sensible people, who have more claim to be considered, will believe that things have been done exactly as they have.

For let me tell you, gentlemen, that to be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know. No one knows with regard to death whether it is not really the greatest blessing that can happen to a man; but people dread it as though they were certain that it is the greatest evil.