[491e]
shall we not similarly affirm that the best
endowed souls become worse than the others under a bad education? Or do you
suppose that great crimes and unmixed wickedness spring from a slight
nature1 and not from a vigorous one
corrupted by its nurture, while a weak nature will never be the cause of
anything great, either for good or evil?”
“No,” he said, “that is the case.”
1 Cf. 495 B; La Rochefoucauld, Max. 130 “Ia faiblesse est le seul défaut qu'on ne saurait corriger” and 467 “Ia faiblesse est plus opposée à Ia vertu que le vice.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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