Plato Complete Works

Thoughts

Highlights

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EUTHYPHRO 🔗

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Pious acts and people may indeed be loved by the gods, but that is a secondary quality, not the ‘essence’ of piety—it is not that which serves as the standard being sought. 🔗

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One should only watch whether the killer acted justly or not; if he acted justly, let him go, [c] but if not, one should prosecute, if, that is to say, the killer shares your hearth and table. 🔗

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or is the pious not the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form or appearance in so far as it is impious? 🔗

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EUTHYPHRO: I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; [e] not to prosecute is impious. 🔗

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EUTHYPHRO: Well then, what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious. 🔗

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An action or a man dear to the gods is pious, but an action or a man hated by the gods is impious. They are not the same, but quite opposite, the pious and the impious. 🔗

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Consider this: Is the [10] pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? 🔗

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SOCRATES: It is not being seen because it is a thing seen but on the contrary it is a thing seen because it is being seen; 🔗

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SOCRATES: It is then not right to say “where there is fear there is also shame,” but that where there is shame there is also fear, for fear covers a larger area than shame. Shame is a part of fear just as odd is a part of number, with the result that it is not true that where there is number there is also oddness, but that where there is oddness there is also number. Do you follow me now? 🔗

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the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him. 🔗

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2. Here Socrates gives the general principle under which, he says, the specific cases already examined—those of leading, carrying, and seeing—all fall. It is by being changed by something that changes it (e.g. by carrying it somewhere) that anything is a changed thing—not vice versa: it is not by something’s being a changed thing that something else then changes it so that it comes to be being changed (e.g. by carrying it somewhere). Likewise for “affections” such as being seen by someone: it is by being “affected” by something that “affects” it that anything is an “affected” thing, not vice versa. It is not by being an “affected” thing (e.g., a thing seen) that something else then “affects” it. 🔗

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APOLOGY 🔗

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The gods want, more than anything else, that we shall be good, and goodness depends principally upon the quality of our understanding of what to care about and how to behave in our lives: philosophy, through Socratic discussion, is the pursuit of that understanding. 🔗

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True to his philosophical calling, he requires that the Athenians think, honestly and dispassionately, and decide the truth of the charges by reasoning from the facts as they actually were. 🔗

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one must simply fight with shadows 🔗

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“I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.” 🔗

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I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen, but I must. Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better [c] than their authors could. I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say. The poets seemed to me to have had a similar experience. At the same time I saw that, because of their poetry, they thought themselves very wise men in other respects, which they were not. 🔗

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“This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless.” 🔗

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Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual things. 🔗

• [N] Charge 2

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[b] You condemn me to a great misfortune. Tell me: does this also apply to horses do you think? That all men improve them and one individual corrupts them? Or is quite the contrary true, one individual is able to improve them, or very few, namely, the horse breeders, whereas the majority, if they have horses and use them, corrupt them? Is that not the case, Meletus, both with horses and all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. It would be a very happy state of affairs if only one person corrupted our youth, while the others improved them. 🔗

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But if I believe in spiritual things I must quite inevitably believe in spirits. Is that not so? It is indeed. 🔗

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wherever a man has taken a position that he believes to be best, or has been placed by his commander, there he must I think remain and face danger, without a thought for death or anything else, rather than disgrace. 🔗

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To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the [b] most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. 🔗

• [N] #🔥

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Be sure that this is what the god orders me to do, and I think there is no greater blessing for the city than my service to the god. For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for [b] your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” 🔗

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4. Alternatively, this sentence could be translated: “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings for men.” 🔗

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if you kill the sort of man I say I am, you will not harm me more than yourselves. 🔗

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he could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse; certainly he might kill me, or perhaps banish or disfranchise me, which he and maybe others think to be great harm, but I do not think so. I think he is doing himself much greater harm doing what he is doing now, attempting to have a man executed unjustly. 🔗

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It is a voice, and whenever it speaks it turns me away from something I am about to do, but it never encourages me to do anything. 🔗

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A man who really fights for [32] justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time. 🔗

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It is not the purpose of a juryman’s office to give justice as a favor to whoever seems good to him, but to judge according to law, and this he has sworn to do. We should not accustom you to perjure yourselves, nor should you make a habit of it. This is irreverent conduct for either of us. 🔗

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I did not follow that path that would have made me of no use either to you or to myself, but I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying to persuade him not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself should be as good and as wise as possible, not to care for the city’s possessions more than [d] for the city itself, and to care for other things in the same way. 🔗

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The Olympian victor makes you think yourself happy; I make you be happy. 🔗

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Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself, to say that I deserve some evil and to make some such assessment against myself. 🔗

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Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to [38] keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for men, you will believe me even less. 🔗

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Perhaps you think that I was convicted for lack of such words as might have convinced you, if I thought I should say or do all I could to avoid my sentence. Far from it. I was convicted because I lacked not words but boldness and shamelessness and the willingness to say to you what you would most gladly have heard from me, lamentations and tears [e] and my saying and doing many things that I say are unworthy of me but that you are accustomed to hear from others. I did not think then that the danger I ran should make me do anything mean, nor do I now regret the nature of my defense. I would much rather die after this kind of defense than live after making the other kind. Neither I nor any other man should, [39] on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost. Indeed it is often obvious in battle that one could escape death by throwing away one’s weapons and by turning to supplicate one’s pursuers, and there are many ways to avoid death in every kind of danger if one will venture to do or [b] say anything to avoid it. It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Slow and elderly as I am, I have been caught by the slower pursuer, whereas my accusers, being clever and sharp, have been caught by the quicker, wickedness. I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice. So I maintain my assessment, and they maintain theirs. This perhaps had to happen, and I think it is as it should be. 🔗

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You are wrong if you believe that by killing people you will prevent anyone from reproaching you for not living in the right way. To escape such tests is neither possible nor good, but it is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible. With this prophecy to you who convicted me, I part from you. 🔗

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What do I think is the reason for this? I will tell you. What has happened to me may well be a good thing, and those of us who believe death to be an evil are certainly mistaken. I have convincing proof of this, for it is impossible that my [c] familiar sign did not oppose me if I was not about to do what was right. 🔗

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If death is [e] like this I say it is an advantage, for all eternity would then seem to be no more than a single night. 🔗

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Most important, I could spend my time testing and examining people there, as I do here, as to who among them is wise, and who thinks he is, but is not. 🔗

• [N] lol, annoying people in the after life

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a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods. 🔗

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This much I ask from them: when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue, or if they think they are somebody when they are nobody. Reproach them as I reproach you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy [42] when they are not worthy of anything. If you do this, I shall have been justly treated by you, and my sons also. 🔗

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Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god. 🔗

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CRITO 🔗