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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: punished are less miserable--are you going to refute this proposition also?
POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other,
Socrates.
SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?
POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to
make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes
burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on
him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last
impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than if he escape
and become a tyrant, and continue all through life doing what he likes and
holding the reins of government, the envy and admiration both of citizens
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