previous next
[503b] in fear1 of starting2 our present debate.” “Most true,” he said; “I remember.” “We shrank, my friend,” I said, “from uttering the audacities which have now been hazarded. But now let us find courage for the definitive pronouncement that as the most perfect3 guardians we must establish philosophers.” “Yes, assume it to have been said,” said he. “Note, then, that they will naturally be few,4 for the different components of the nature which we said their education presupposed rarely consent to grow in one; but for the most part these qualities are found apart.”

1 Cf. 387 B.

2 Cf. the proverbial μὴ κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα, do not move the immovable, “let sleeping dogs lie,” in Laws 684 D-E, 913 B. Cf. also Phileb. 16 C, and the American idiom “start something.”

3 Cf. 503 D. 341 B, 340 E, 342 D.

4 Cf. on 494 A.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1903)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (1 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXI
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: