Sunday, March 27, 2016

Understanding

I have quoted from the Bible and the Holy Qur'an. Now I am going to be quoting from the "Trial and Death of Socrates, Four Dialogues", by Plato. The dialogues of Plato stand alongside the Bible as a foundational text of Western civilization.
"I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Someone will say: and are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong--acting the part of a good man or of a bad...
...For wherever a man's place is... there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or anything, but of disgrace..."

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