republic (books 1 - 5)   

What, and no payment! A pleasant notion!

I will pay when I have the money, I replied.

But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasyma-
chus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all
make a contribution for Socrates.

Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does
--refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the
answer of someone else.

Why, my good friend, I said, how can anyone answer who
knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even
if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of
authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the
speaker should be someone like yourself who professes to know
and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for
the edification of the company and of myself?

Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request,
and Thrasymachus, as anyone might see, was in reality eager
to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and
would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist
on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold,
he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself,
and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says,
Thank you.

That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am
ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore
I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready I am to
praise anyone who appears to me to speak well you will very
soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will an-
swer well.

Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else
than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not
praise me? But of course you won't.

Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say,
is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the
meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polyd-
amas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the
eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef
is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is,
and right and just for us?

That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in
the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand
them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer.

Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of govern-
ment differ--there are tyrannies, and there are democracies,
and there are aristocracies?

Yes, I know.

And the government is the ruling power in each State?

Certainly.