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[469c]

Socrates
I should wish neither, for my own part; but if it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it.

Polus
Then you would not accept a despot's power?

Socrates
No, if you mean by a despot's power the same as I do.

Polus
Why, what I mean is, as I did just now, the liberty of doing anything one thinks fit in one's city—putting people to death and expelling them and doing everything at one's own discretion.

Socrates
My gifted friend, let me speak, and you shall take me to task in your turn.


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

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  • Commentary references to this page (6):
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 214E
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 471e
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 472d
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 474d
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 506a
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 519a
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