Home > Work > The Collected Dialogues
1 " Please do not be offended if I tell you the truth. No man [e] on earth who conscientiously opposes either you or any other organized democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities from taking place in the state to which he belongs, can possibly escape with his life. "
― Plato , The Collected Dialogues
2 " You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. "
3 " There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs-- which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are. "
4 " Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described? "
5 " Y así, Trasímaco --- dije yo-, nadie que tiene gobierno, en cuanto es gobernante, examina ni ordena lo conveniente para sí mismo, sino lo conveniente para el gobernado y sujeto a su arte, y dice cuanto dice y hace todo cuanto hace mirando a éste y a su conveniencia y ventaja. "
