Quotes About Morality

Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State? Make the proclamation yourself, he said. And

the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base

The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State.

Pues bien, del mismo modo el malo, si ha de ser un hombre auténticamente malo, debe reali­zar con destreza sus malas acciones y pasar inadvertido con ellas. Y al que se deje sorprender en ellas hay que considerarlo inhábil, pues no hay mayor perfección en el mal que el parecer ser bueno no siéndolo.

And now we go our separate ways, I to die and you to live, which is better God only knows.

those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good.

Pues bien -continué-, no debemos buscar el juez bueno y sabio en esa persona, sino en la anteriormente descrita. Pues la maldad jamás podrá conocerse al mis­mo tiempo a sí misma y a la virtud, y, en cambio, la vir­tud innata llegará, con los años y auxiliada por la educa­ción, a adquirir un conocimiento simultáneo de sí misma y de la maldad. En mi opinión será, pues, sabio el hombre virtuoso, pero no el malo.

to suffer is better than to do evil;' and the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of self-accusation.

So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice.

Sinceramente? Èpico.

philosophical

Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few

And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance the one always rises as the other falls.

I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.

En todos los respectos, pues, el alabador de la justi­cia dirá verdad y mentirá el de la injusticia. Ya se mire al placer, ya a la buena fama, ya al provecho, el que encomia lo justo acierta y el que lo censura no dice nada en razón y ni siquiera conoce lo que censura.

And if we are good, we are beneficent: for all good things are beneficial. Are they not?

It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue.

The very good and the very wicked are both quite rare, and that most men are between those extremes.

Pues a mi, ni Méleto ni Ánito pueden ocasionarme ningún mal, aunque se lo propusieran. ¿Cómo pueden hacerlo, si estoy plenamente convencido de que un hombre malvado jamás puede perjudicar a un hombre justo?

Y no diremos también, amigo, que los hombres, al ser dañados, se hacen peores en lo que toca a la virtud humana? -Ni más ni menos. -¿ Y la justicia no es virtud humana? -También esto es forzoso. -Necesario es, por tanto, querido amigo, que los hombres que reciben daño se hagan más injustos. -Eso parece.

SOCRATES: And is then all that is just pious? Or is all that is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some of it is and some is not? [12] EUTHYPHRO: I do not follow what you are saying, Socrates.

the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and unlike

el amor, como dije antes, no es bello ni feo por sí mismo. Es bello si se ama obedeciendo a las leyes de la honorabilidad, y feo si se ama faltando a ellas; porque no es honrado conceder sus favores a un hombre vicioso y por malos motivos, y es honorable rendirse por buenas causas al amor de un hombre que practica la virtud.

The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further—'seen or unseen by gods or men.' This