Reading Notes

From the Last Days of Scrates, by Plato

• any Athenian, on attaining on manhook and seeing for himself the political organisation of the the State and us its Laws, is permitted, if he is not satisfied with us, to take his property and go away wherever he likes. If anyone of you chooses to go to one of our colonies, supposing that he should not be satisfied with us and the State, or to emigrate to any other country, not one of us Laws hinders or prevents him from going away wherever he likes, without any loss of property.
• On the other hand, if any of you stands on his ground when he can see how we administer justice and the rest of our public organisation, we hold that by doing so he has in fact undertaken to do anything that we tell him.
• We maintain that anyone who disobeys is guilty of doing wrong on three seperate counts: first because we bought him into the world, secondly because we reared him, and thirdly because, after promising obedience, he is neither obeying us nor persuading us to change our decision if we are at fault any way.
• What a queer thing it is, my friend, this sensation is probably called pleasure! It is remarkable how closely it is connected with its apparent opposite, pain. They will never come to a man both at once, but if you pursue one of them and catch it, you are virtually compelled always to have the other as well; they are like two bodies attached to the same head.