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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: State approves, would have appeared to him both uncertain and unimportant
in comparison of the duty of self-examination, and of those principles of
truth and right which he deemed to be the foundation of religion. (Compare
Phaedr.; Euthyph.; Republic.)
The second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as braving
or irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative. His
irony, his superiority, his audacity, 'regarding not the person of man,'
necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not acting a
part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his life long,
'a king of men.' He would rather not appear insolent, if he could avoid it
(ouch os authadizomenos touto lego). Neither is he desirous of hastening
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