republic (books 1 - 5)   

Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the
unjust man will live ill?

That is what your argument proves.

And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives
ill the reverse of happy?

Certainly.

Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?

So be it.

But happiness, and not misery, is profitable?

Of course.

Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more
profitable than justice.

Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the
Bendidea.

For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have
grown gentle toward me and have left off scolding. Never-
theless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own
fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every
dish which is successively brought to table, he not having al-
lowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from
one subject to another without having discovered what I sought
at first, the nature of justice. I left that inquiry and turned
away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil
and folly; and when there arose a further question about the
comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not re-
frain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole
discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not
what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether
it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is
happy or unhappy.


BOOK II
THE INDIVIDUAL, THE STATE, AND EDUCATION

(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)

WITH these words I was thinking that I had made an
end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved
to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always
the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasyma-
chus's retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he
said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or
only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always
better than to be unjust?

I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.

Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you
now: How would you arrange goods--are there not some
which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of
their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and
enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing
follows from them?