Unable to help oneself
CalliclesAnd yet how can this be wise, Socrates—“an art that took a gifted man and made him worse”, a man who is unable to help himself, or to save from the greatest dangers either himself or anyone else, but is stripped of all his property by his enemies and lives in the city utterly without honour? As for such a man, if I may put it rather boorishly, one may box his ears without paying the penalty. But, my good fellow, listen to me: “stop refuting; practise the fine music of affairs, and practise what will make you seem intelligent, leaving these niceties to others”—whether one should call them drivel or nonsense—“for which you will dwell in an empty house”, envying not men who do their refuting over these petty things, but those who have a livelihood and a reputation and many other good things.