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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: done in a state, will save his life; he who will fight for the right, if he
would live even for a brief space, must have a private station and not a
public one.
I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but what
you value far more--actions. Let me relate to you a passage of my own life
which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to injustice from
any fear of death, and that 'as I should have refused to yield' I must have
died at once. I will tell you a tale of the courts, not very interesting
perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only office of state which I ever
held, O men of Athens, was that of senator: the tribe Antiochis, which is
my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not taken
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