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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: see that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But my doctrine is, that a
man should let his desires grow, and take the means of satisfying them. To
the many this is impossible, and therefore they combine to prevent him.
But if he is a king, and has power, how base would he be in submitting to
them! To invite the common herd to be lord over him, when he might have
the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates, that luxury and
self-indulgence are virtue and happiness; all the rest is mere talk.'
Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what other men
only think. According to his view, those who want nothing are not happy.
'Why,' says Callicles, 'if they were, stones and the dead would be happy.'
Socrates in reply is led into a half-serious, half-comic vein of
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