This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician.

Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why.

I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.

And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god? I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.

And so he proposes death as the penalty.

I am better off than he is,— for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.

I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.

Ion