This early dialogue features the charismatic young politician Alcibiades in conversation with Socrates.
When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, – then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing.
O beloved Pan and all ye other gods of this place, grant to me that I be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man. May I consider the wise man rich; and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure.
What has caused my reputation is none other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Human wisdom, perhaps.
Try to pay attention to me,“, she said, ” as best as you can. You see, the man who has been thus far guided in matters of Love, who has beheld beautiful things in the right order and correctly, is coming now to the goal of Loving: all of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature...
Arts like carpentering, which have an exact measure, are to be regarded as higher than music, which for the most part is mere guess-work.
Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still continues to be in Heaven, – that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus.
From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences: – Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.
All these were lovers and emulators and disciples of the culture of the Lacedaemonians, and any one may perceive that their wisdom was of this character; consisting of short memorable sentences, which they severally uttered. And they met together and dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as the first-fruits of their wisdom, the far-famed inscriptions, which are in all men’s mouths – ‘Know thyself,’ and ‘Nothing too much.
Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.
But can that which does not exist have anything pertaining or belonging to it? Of course not. Then the one has no name, nor is there any description or knowledge or perception or opinion of it... And it is neither named nor described nor thought of nor known, nor does any existing thing perceive it.
Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.
For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
I am on the brink of death, while you will carry on living. The judgment of which is truly better rests only within the knowledge of God.
So, Euthyphro, piety then, should be regarded as a reciprocal exchange between Gods and humans.
In a city of good men, if it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they now do in order to rule.
The law is not concerned with making any one class in the city do outstandingly well, but is contriving to produce this condition in the city as a whole.
Isn’t the phrase self-mastery absurd? I mean, anyone who is his own master is also his own slave, of course, and vice-versa, since it’s the same person who is the subject in all these expressions.
After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation.
Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?’ ‘To all,’ said Zeus; ‘I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state.
But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.