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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers
and sacrifices. Such piety is the salvation of families and states, just
as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is their ruin and
destruction.
SOCRATES: I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the
chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen. But I see
plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me--clearly not: else why,
when we reached the point, did you turn aside? Had you only answered me I
should have truly learned of you by this time the nature of piety. Now, as
the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither
he leads I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what
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