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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: Pindar says, 'Law, the king of all, does violence with high hand;' as is
indeed proved by the example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon
and never paid for them.
This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave
philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy
is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not
'passed his metaphysics' before he has grown up to manhood will never know
the world. Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics, and I
dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to
philosophy: 'Every man,' as Euripides says, 'is fondest of that in which
he is best.' Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy,
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