The last word
SocratesPerhaps, though, this seems to you an old wives’ tale, and you despise it; and there would be nothing surprising in despising it, if somehow, by searching, we were able to find something better and truer than it. But as it is, you see that you three, who are the wisest of the Greeks of today, you and Polus and Gorgias, are unable to prove that one should live any other life than this one, which is evidently of advantage there as well.
But among so many arguments, when the others are refuted, this argument alone stands unshaken: that doing injustice is to be guarded against more than suffering injustice, and that above everything a man must make it his care not to seem good but to be, both in private and in public. And if someone becomes bad in some respect, he must be punished, and this is the second good after being just: to become just and, being punished, to pay the penalty. And all flattery, whether of oneself or of others, of few or of many, must be fled; and rhetoric must be used in this way, always for what is just, and so must every other action. Listen to me, then, and follow me there, where, once you arrive, you will be happy both in life and after death, as the argument indicates. And let anyone despise you as a fool and drag you through the mud, if he wants, and yes, by Zeus, you, for your part, take heart and let him strike you that dishonouring blow; for you will suffer nothing terrible, if you are in reality fine and good, practising virtue.
And then, having practised it together in this way, only then, if it seems we must, will we turn to political affairs, or deliberate then about whatever seems good to us, being better at deliberating than we are now. For it is shameful to be in the state we now appear to be in and then to swagger as if we were something, we to whom the same things never seem true about the same things, and about the greatest matters at that—so far gone are we in want of education. So let us use as our guide the account that has now come to light, which indicates to us that this way of life is best: both to live and to die practising justice and the rest of virtue. Let us follow this one, then, and call the others to it, not that one, which you believe in when you call me to it; for it is worth nothing, Callicles.