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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those
who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I
am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good
point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some
way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet
one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes
are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I
hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what
proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men? But I have
one singular good quality, which is my salvation; I am not ashamed to
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