Gorgias

​SOCRATES: But when you go before the judge, the son of Aegina, when he takes hold of you and leads you away, you will gape and become dizzy there no less than I do here, and perhaps someone will strike you even on the cheek dishonorably and utterly abuse you. Perhaps, then, these things seem to you to be told like an old wife’s tale, and you despise them. And indeed, there would be nothing wonderful in despising them, if by searching we were able to find somewhere things better and truer than them. But now you see that, although you are three, you who are the wisest of the Greeks of today—you, Polus, and Gorgias—you are not able to prove that one ought to live any other life than this one, which indeed appears to be advantageous there too. Instead, among so many arguments, while the others are refuted, this argument alone remains unshaken: that one must be more on one’s guard against doing injustice than suffering it, and that above all a man must practice not seeming to be good, but being so, both in private and in public. And if anyone becomes bad in any respect, he must be punished, and this is the second good after being just: to become just and to pay the penalty by being punished. And all flattery, both that which concerns oneself and that which concerns others, whether few or many, must be avoided; and rhetoric must always be used thus, for the sake of justice, and so indeed must every other action. Obey me, therefore, and follow me thither, where having arrived you will be happy both in life and in death, as the argument indicates. And let anyone despise you as a fool and abuse you, if he wishes; and, yes, by Zeus, do you boldly allow him to strike you with that insulting blow; for you will suffer nothing terrible if you are truly excellent, practicing virtue. And then, having practiced thus in common, then at last, if it seems necessary, we will apply ourselves to political affairs, or whatever else seems best to us, then we will deliberate, being better able to deliberate than we are now. For it is shameful, being in the state in which we now appear to be, to behave then like youthfully bold people as if we were something, we to whom the same things never seem to hold regarding the same matters, and that too regarding the greatest things—to such a point of uneducation have we come. Let us therefore use as a guide the argument that has now appeared, which indicates to us that this way of life is best: to live and to die practicing justice and the rest of virtue. Let us then follow this, and let us exhort others to do the same, and not that other way which you, trusting in it, exhort me to follow; for it is worth nothing, Callicles.