republic (books 1 - 5)   

and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions
of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would
both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly
affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or
because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually,
but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely
be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their
hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual
than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will
say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining
this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong
or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the
lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would
praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with
one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
Enough of this.

Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the
just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way;
and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the
unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just;
nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are
to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives.
First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft;
like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his
own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails
at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make
his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means
to be great in his injustice (he who is found out is nobody):
for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when
you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man
we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no
deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust
acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If
he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself;
he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds
come to light, and who can force his way where force is re-
quired by his courage and strength, and command of money
and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his
nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as AEschylus says, to be and
not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem
to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall
not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the
sake of honor and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in jus-
tice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined
in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best
of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have
been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be
affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let
him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming
to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme,
the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be
given which of them is the happier of the two.

Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you
polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other,
as if they were two statues.

I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they
are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which
awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as
you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to
suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.
Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: