214 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2013
    1. 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.

    2. that there are in fact no acknowledged teachers,

      Friends, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and extended family are all teachers because you learn from them.

    3. it is that wisdom and virtue can neither be taught nor learned.

      You already know it?

    4. ("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.

    5. 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.

    6. 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.

    7. " 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.

    8. (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.

    9. 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.

    10. 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.

    11. 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.

    12. 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.

    13. 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.

    14. 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?