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“He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”
“He who will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief space, must have a private station and not a public one.”
I learned this when the city demanded I choose between my life and doing what is just. I saw that true service to the many requires staying out of their councils so as not to be corrupted by fear or ambition. If you wish to act rightly, keep your hands clean from the state’s dirty work.
“I came across a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him.”
The sun beat down upon the marble steps where we sat, dust rising from our sandals as we spoke. Callias sat with his head bowed, counting coins in a small bag while I asked him about the boys who should learn virtue. He did not answer my question about wisdom; he only thought of the price they would pay to be improved.
“You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses.”
I saw a man who would rather be wrong than admit his own ignorance. He claims I teach new gods while denying the old ones, yet he cannot see that if the spirits are children of the gods, the parents must exist for the children to have a name. To deny the father while praising the son is not wisdom; it is confusion. I compared this to saying there are…
“I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.”
You call me a nuisance because I sting your sleep and wake you from laziness. You say I bite without cause, yet I see only that a great beast grows sluggish when it thinks itself safe. My own life shows this truth; I have no house, no wealth, and no family to tend. Instead, I walk the streets day after day, biting at your errors just as a horse needs…
