Plato - Jowett

-END......................1
Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another’s way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellowsailors ; aye, and they may observe the behavior of each other in the very moment of danger — for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich — and very likely the wiry, sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh — when he sees such a one puffing and at his wits’-end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them ? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another, “Our warriors are not good for much” ?	THE REPUBLIC VIII
ABANDON...................2
Socrates : Demodocus, your zeal is no wonder to me, if you suppose that I especially could be of use to him ; for I know of nothing for which a sensible man could be more zealous than for his own son’s utmost improvement. But how you came to form this opinion, that I would be better able to be of use to your son in his aim of becoming a good citizen than you would yourself, and how he came to suppose that I rather than yourself would be of use to him — this does fill me with wonder. For you, [127e] in the first place, are my elder, and further, you have held in your time many of the highest offices in Athens, and are respected by the people of Anagyrus above all your fellow-townsmen, and by the whole state as much as any man, whereas neither of you can notice anything like this about me. And moreover, if Theages here does despise the instruction of our statesmen, and is looking for some other persons who profess to be able to educate young people, we have here Prodicus of Ceos, Gorgias of Leontini, Polus of Acragas, [128a] and many more, who are so wise that they go to our cities and persuade the noblest and wealthiest of our young men — who have the choice of learning from any citizen they choose, free of charge — they persuade them to abandon that instruction and learn from them, with a deposit, besides, of a large sum of money as their fee, and to feel thankful in addition. Some of these persons might naturally have been chosen both by your son and by yourself, in preference to me ; [128b] for I have no knowledge of those fair and beatific subjects of study : I only wish that I had. But what I always say, you know, is that I am in the position of knowing practically nothing except one little subject, that of love-matters. In this subject, however, I claim to be skilled above anybody who has ever lived or is now living in the world.	THEAGES
Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction ? How or where shall we find another if we abandon this ? We cannot, and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck to you ; and I in return for my yesterday’s discourse will now rest and be a listener.	TIMAEUS
ABANDONING................1
And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live at principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking ? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any one else. The beloved too, when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour ; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms ? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger ? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time ; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.	SYMPOSIUM
ABARIS....................1
Yes, I said, Charmides ; and indeed I think that you ought to excel others in all good qualities ; for if I am not mistaken there is no one present who could easily point out two Athenian houses, whose union would be likely to produce a better or nobler scion than the two from which you are sprung. There is your father’s house, which is descended from Critias the son of Dropidas, whose family has been commemorated in the panegyrical verses of Anacreon, Solon, and many other poets, as famous for beauty and virtue and all other high fortune : and your mother’s house is equally distinguished ; for your maternal uncle, Pyrilampes, is reputed never to have found his equal, in Persia at the court of the great king, or on the continent of Asia, in all the places to which he went as ambassador, for stature and beauty ; that whole family is not a whit inferior to the other. Having such ancestors you ought to be first in all things, and, sweet son of Glaucon, your outward form is no dishonour to any of them. If to beauty you add temperance, and if in other respects you are what Critias declares you to be, then, dear Charmides, blessed art thou, in being the son of thy mother. And here lies the point ; for if, as he declares, you have this gift of temperance already, and are temperate enough, in that case you have no need of any charms, whether of Zamolxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean, and I may as well let you have the cure of the head at once ; but if you have not yet acquired this quality, I must use the charm before I give you the medicine. Please, therefore, to inform me whether you admit the truth of what Critias has been saying ; — have you or have you not this quality of temperance ?	CHARMIDES
ABATE.....................3
“These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter ; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms ; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only — out of that he should create fair thoughts ; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another ; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same ! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms ; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle ; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom ; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed ; please to give me your very best attention :	SYMPOSIUM
When a man does another any injury by theft or violence, for the greater injury let him pay greater damages to the injured man, and less for the smaller injury ; but in all cases, whatever the injury may have been, as much as will compensate the loss. And besides the compensation of the wrong, let a man pay a further penalty for the chastisement of his offence : he who has done the wrong instigated by the folly of another, through the lightheartedness of youth or the like, shall pay a lighter penalty ; but he who has injured another through his own folly, when overcome by pleasure or pain, in cowardly fear, or lust, or envy, or implacable anger, shall endure a heavier punishment. Not that he is punished because he did wrong, for that which is done can never be undone, but in order that in future times, he, and those who see him corrected, may utterly hate injustice, or at any rate abate much of their evil-doing. Having an eye to all these things, the law, like a good archer, should aim at the right measure of punishment, and in all cases at the deserved punishment. In the attainment of this the judge shall be a fellow-worker with the legislator, whenever the law leaves to him to determine what the offender shall suffer or pay ; and the legislator, like a painter, shall give a rough sketch of the cases in which the law is to be applied. This is what we must do, Megillus and Cleinias, in the best and fairest manner that we can, saying what the punishments are to be of all actions of theft and violence, and giving laws of such a kind as the Gods and sons of Gods would have us give.	LAWS XI
And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being — that is his nature ; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on — the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.	THE REPUBLIC VI
ABATED....................1
Phaedr. I will ; and now as the heat is abated let us depart.	PHAEDRUS
ABATES....................1
And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence ; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rational being. And if these combine in him with any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all ; but if he neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is a later stage ; at present we must treat more exactly the subject before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation of the body and its members, and as to how the soul was created — for what reason and by what providence of the gods ; and holding fast to probability, we must pursue our way.	TIMAEUS
ABDERA....................2
Soc. Of Abdera.	PROTAGORAS
Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind — if he had possessed knowledge, and not been a mere imitator — can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honored and loved by them ? Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos and a host of others have only to whisper to their contemporaries : “You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education” — and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous ? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them ? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough ?	THE REPUBLIC X
ABERRATION................1
Str. And what is ignorance but the aberration of a mind which is bent on truth, and in which the process of understanding is perverted ?	SOPHIST
ABHOR.....................1
“Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals.”	THE REPUBLIC III
ABHORRENCE................2
Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them ; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him ; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.	THE REPUBLIC IV
And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father’s meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch ?	THE REPUBLIC IX
ABHORRING.................1
Ath. Seeing you thus in earnest, I would fain offer up a prayer that I may succeed : — but I must proceed at once. Who can be calm when he is called upon to prove the existence of the Gods ? Who can avoid hating and abhorring the men who are and have been the cause of this argument ; I speak of those who will not believe the tales which they have heard as babes and sucklings from their mothers and nurses, repeated by them both in jest and earnest, like charms, who have also heard them in the sacrificial prayers, and seen sights accompanying them — sights and sounds delightful to children — and their parents during the sacrifices showing an intense earnestness on behalf of their children and of themselves, and with eager interest talking to the Gods, and beseeching them, as though they were firmly convinced of their existence ; who likewise see and hear the prostrations and invocations which are made by Hellenes and barbarians at the rising and setting of the sun and moon, in all the vicissitudes of life, not as if they thought that there were no Gods, but as if there could be no doubt of their existence, and no suspicion of their non-existence ; when men, knowing all these things, despise them on no real grounds, as would be admitted by all who have any particle of intelligence, and when they force us to say what we are now saying, how can any one in gentle terms remonstrate with the like of them, when he has to begin by proving to them the very existence of the Gods ? Yet the attempt must be made ; for it would be unseemly that one half of mankind should go mad in their lust of pleasure, and the other half in their indignation at such persons. Our address to these lost and perverted natures should not be spoken in passion ; let us suppose ourselves to select some one of them, and gently reason with him, smothering our anger : — O my son, we will say to him, you are young, and the advance of time will make you reverse may of the opinions which you now hold. Wait awhile, and do not attempt to judge at present of the highest things ; and that is the highest of which you now think nothing — to know the Gods rightly and to live accordingly. And in the first place let me indicate to you one point which is of great importance, and about which I cannot be deceived : — You and your friends are not the first who have held this opinion about the Gods. There have always been persons more or less numerous who have had the same disorder. I have known many of them, and can tell you, that no one who had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever continued in the same until he was old ; the two other notions certainly do continue in some cases, but not in many ; the notion, I mean, that the Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices and prayers. As to the opinion about the Gods which may some day become clear to you, I advise you go wait and consider if it be true or not ; ask of others, and above all of the legislator. In the meantime take care that you do not offend against the Gods. For the duty of the legislator is and always will be to teach you the truth of these matters.	LAWS X