for it is on a country's laws that its whole welfare depends.
If we did not have laws governing us, our society would be a free for all and would not be a great place to live. There is a difference between necessary laws and laws that take away freedom.
All men take as much pleasure in listening to this kind of prose as in listening to poetry, and many desire to take lessons in it, believing that those who excel in this field are wiser and better and of more use to the world than men who speak well in court.
Not sure really what to call this except a combo of Glittering Generalities and trying to boost his credibility. I'm sure there's a better word for it, but South Park is on and I am distracted brainally.
How then is it necessary to regard as just the blame of Helen, who either passionately in love or persuaded by discourse or abducted by force or constrained by divine constraints did the things she did, escaping responsibility every way?
How do you decide when to blame someone or when it is their fault? Is there a line? If so, where do you draw it? How do you know what someone else is thinking?
And many fall into useless troubles and terrible diseases and incurable dementias; thus sight engraves in the mind images of things seen. And the frightening ones, many of them, remain; and those that remain are just like things said.
PTSD. Many people who go to war or witness terrible things have a hard time functioning. It is not their fault, they did nothing to deserve it and need help to get better. It is not something that they can be blamed for.
For just as different drugs draw off different humors from the body, and some put an end to disease and others to life, so too of discourses: some give pain, others delight, others terrify, others rouse the hearers to courage, and yet others by a certain vile persuasion drug and trick the soul.
This is a very interesting point.
He who persuaded (as constrainer) did wrong; while she who was persuaded (as one constrained by means of the discourse) is wrongly blamed.
Someone persuades something to do something wrong and they know it is wrong then they are to blame; but if someone persuades someone to do something wrong and they do not know it is wrong then they persuader is to blame not the person being persuaded.
For if all people possessed memory concerning all things past, and awareness of all things present, and foreknowledge of all things to come, discourse would not be similarly similar;
If everyone thought that they knew everything it would be very difficult to have a conversation with anyone. This is saying that people have to read and advise/inform themselves of what is going on in order to make an educated decision. We see this today with President Obama talking about Syria, people have had to read and listen to different things in order to make up their own minds and not just listen to politicians. They are trying to use rhetoric to persuade people that they are right, but the overwhelming majority of the country has decided they are not.
By means of words, inspired incantations serve as bringers-on of pleasure and takers-off of pain. For the incantation's power, communicating with the soul's opinion, enchants and persuades and changes it, by trickery. Two distinct methods of trickery and magic are to be found: errors of soul, and deceptions of opinion.
Persuading and manipulating people, isn't this what rhetoric is? Using different tools to sway people's opinions?
Accordingly, if one must attribute responsibility to Fortune and the god, one must acquit Helen of infamy.
If they are going to blame someone they cannot blame Helen? Her father is the god, she was born and people are jealous of her?
For the will of a god cannot be hindered by human forethought.
This is saying that the God's did not give people free choice which is contradictory to some religions today. People make decisions and suffer the consequences or gain the benefits. Can people really not think for themselves?
her father was in fact the god, but said to be mortal, Tyndareus and Zeus--of whom the one, by being, seemed, while the other, by speech, was disproved--and the one was the mightiest of men while the other was tyrant over all
Is he two people? Multiple personalities? One is good, one is bad?
It is not unclear, not even to a few, that the woman who is the subject of this discourse was the foremost of the foremost men and women, by nature and by birth
She is above all others, almost like a God. Why?
practice whatever' you hear.
practice makes perfect and can help you remember things. repetitiveness
if you focus your attention, your mind, making progress by this means, will perceive more.
If you pay attention you learn more, simple fact!
Therefore it must be that he knows everything.
False conclusion?
Because it is necessary for the man who intends to speak correctly to speak about the things which he knows. It follows that he will know everything
Not possible for one man to know everything, goes back to the beginning - what he might know to be true may not be true for someone else
And, first of all, how will it not be possible for a man who knows about the nature of all things to act rightly in every case and (teach the city) to do so too?
Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect. Like the text said earlier that it depends on the situation to make something right or wrong. There is never one right answer.
And they say that this procedure is also not only good but exceptionally democratic, whereas I think that democratic is the last thing it is.
I don't think this is democratic, they are trying to make it fair but they are not allowing people to put their talents to good use which is unfair to all people.
We learn our words in this fashion and we don't know who our teachers are.
Everyone around us is a teacher, we learn things on a daily basis. I learn by watching, listening, and talking to people.
With respect to the fourth point, that some do not become wise in spite of .associating with the sophists, many people also do not succeed in learning their letters in spite of studying them.
Many people may try to learn this and still not succeed.
that there are in fact no acknowledged teachers,
Friends, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and extended family are all teachers because you learn from them.
it is that wisdom and virtue can neither be taught nor learned.
You already know it?
("Glaucus") and ("white"), or ("Xanthus") and ("blonde"), or ("Xuthus ") and ("nimble").
It doesn't make a difference when you say it, but how you say it? Intonation.
And we ought to bring up the question whether it is the sane or the demented who speak at the right moment. For whenever anyone asks this question they answer that the two groups say the same things, but that the wise speak at the right moment and the demented at the wrong one.
Smart people know when and when not to speak.
Because if you ask them this sort of question, whether madness differs from sense, or wisdom from folly, they say " yes ".
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
" The demented and the sane and the wise and the foolish both say and do the same things.
People choose to speak at different (appropriate) times which makes one person wise and one person foolish.
(just the way a man is the same person when he is a child and a young man and an adult and an old man.)
Same person evolving and growing over time.
My opponents would declare that it is right and just to do these things to one's enemies but disgraceful and wicked to do so to one's friends
I disagree, I think it is wrong to lie regardless of who you are talking to.
In Lacedaemon it is seemly for girls to do athletics; in Lacedaemon it is disgraceful for girls to do athletics, and so forth.
Nowadays all women are invited to participate in the Olympics yet some countries don't encourage women to do so, they discourage it.
And if you investigate in this way, you will see another law for mortals: nothing is always seemly or always disgraceful, but the right occasion takes the same things and makes them disgraceful and then alters them and makes them seemly.
Nothing is ever black and white, it is the situation you are in that determines your decision. There is a story that my parents told me about learning to see from other peoples point of view; two students were not getting along in class so the teacher had them both stand on opposite sides of her desk and asked them to tell her what color an object on her desk was. One student said black and the other said white; they proceeded to criticize each other until the teacher made them switch spots and they realized that it was a different color on the other side. You cannot judge something or someone until you have walked in their shoes and seen things from their perspective.
Egyptians do not think the same things seemly as other people do:
All of these societies have different views on what is right and wrong but nowadays everything the author has listed is morally reprehensible or illegal or both.
To murder one's friends and fellow-citizens is wicked but to slaughter the enemy is admirable. And examples like this can be given on all topics.
War changes the way we think. We don't think of it as people but a mission or a task to be accomplished - a goal to be achieved.
There is nothing to prevent the Great King from being in the same state as a beggar.
What separates groups of people? Why do some have more and some have less?