Gorgias

​SOCRATES: But on the other hand, reversing this, if indeed one must do harm to someone, whether an enemy or anyone at all—provided only that one is not himself treated unjustly by the enemy, for this indeed must be guarded against—but if the enemy does injustice to another, one must prepare in every way, both by acting and by speaking, so that he does not pay the penalty nor go before the judge. And if he does go, one must scheme so that the enemy escapes and does not pay the penalty; rather, if he has stolen a great amount of gold, he should not return it, but keep it and spend it on himself and his own associates unjustly and godlessly, and if again he has committed injustices worthy of death, so that he will not die—ideally never, but will remain immortal, being wicked—or if not, so that he will live for as long a time as possible, being such. For such things, Polus, it seems to me that rhetoric is useful, since for one who does not intend to do injustice, its usefulness does not seem to me to be very great, if indeed there even is any usefulness, as in our previous discussion it appeared to be of no use at all. CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest about this, or is he playing? CHAEREPHON: To me indeed, Callicles, he seems to be exceptionally in earnest; however, there is nothing like asking him himself. CALLICLES: By the gods, but I do desire to! Tell me, Socrates, whether we should assume you are now in earnest or playing? For if you are in earnest and these things you say happen to be true, wouldn’t our human life be turned upside down, and we are doing, as it seems, all the opposite of what we ought? SOCRATES: Callicles, if human beings did not share a certain common experience—some one experience, others another of the same kind—but instead one of us experienced some unique feeling different from the others, it would not be easy to make clear one’s own experience to the other. I say this because I perceive that you and I happen to have experienced the same thing: we are two lovers, each of two objects: I of Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, and of philosophy; you of two as well: the Athenian demos, and the son of Pyrilampes. I notice, then, that on every occasion, despite being clever, whatever your beloved says and in whatever way he says things are, you are unable to contradict him, but shift up and down. And in the assembly, if the Athenian demos says things are not as you say they are when you speak, you shift and say what it wants; and you have a similar experience with respect to this beautiful youth, the son of Pyrilampes.