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90 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 381
There's nothing you can do that can't be doneOPRAH: That's wonderful, Paul, but who are you voting for?
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love--
“It’s been less than three years that I’ve been Socrates’ companion and made it my job to know exactly what he says and does each day. Before that, I simply drifted aimlessly. Of course, I used to think that what I was doing was important, but in fact I was the most worthless man on earth—as bad as you are this very moment: I used to think philosophy was the last thing a man should do.”
"Love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace - its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to. The common, vulgar lover loves the body rather than the soul, his love is bound to be inconstant, since what he loves is itself mutable and unstable. The moment the body is no longer in bloom, “he flies off and away,” his promises and vows in tatters behind him. How different from this is a man who loves the right sort of character, and who remains its lover for life, attached as he is to something that is permanent."
"We can now see the point of our customs: they are designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, the proper love from the vile. That’s why we do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for lovers to press their suits and as difficult as possible for young men to comply; it is like a competition, a kind of test to determine to which sort each belongs. This explains two further facts: First, why we consider it shameful to yield too quickly: the passage of time in itself provides a good test in these matters. Second, why we also consider it shameful for a man to be seduced by money or political power, either because he cringes at ill-treatment and will not endure it or because, once he has tasted the benefits of wealth and power, he will not rise above them. None of these benefits is stable or permanent, apart from the fact that no genuine affection can possibly be based upon them."
***
"Only in this case, we should notice, is it never shameful to be deceived; in every other case it is shameful, both for the deceiver and the person he deceives. Suppose, for example, that someone thinks his lover is rich and accepts him for his money; his action won’t be any less shameful if it turns out that he was deceived and his lover was a poor man after all. For the young man has already shown himself to be the sort of person who will do anything for money—and that is far from honorable. By the same token, suppose that someone takes a lover in the mistaken belief that this lover is a good man and likely to make him better himself, while in reality the man is horrible, totally lacking in virtue; even so, it is noble for him to have been deceived. For he too has demonstrated something about himself: that he is the sort of person who will do anything for the sake of virtue—and what could be more honorable than that? It follows, therefore, that giving in to your lover for virtue’s sake is honorable, whatever the outcome. And this, of course, is the Heavenly Love of the heavenly goddess. Love’s value to the city as a whole and to the citizens is immeasurable, for he compels the lover and his loved one alike to make virtue their central concern. All other forms of love belong to the vulgar goddess."
“Aristophanes, do you really think you can take a shot at me, and then escape? Use your head! Remember, as you speak, that you will be called upon to give an account. Though perhaps, if I decide to, I’ll let you off.”
"For every praise, no matter whose: you must explain what qualities in the subject of your speech enable it to give the benefits for which we praise it. So now, in the case of Love, it is right for us to praise him first for what it is and afterwards for its gifts."
“You have beautifully and magnificently expounded his qualities in other ways, tell me this, too, about Love. Is Love such as to be a love of something or of nothing?"
“No one is in need of those things he already has.”
***
“Whenever you say, I desire what I already have, ask yourself whether you don’t mean this: I want the things I have now to be mine in the future as well."
“In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.”
„A adormit întîi Aristofan, apoi, cînd s-a făcut de tot lumină, și Agaton. Socrate, după ce i-a văzut cufundaţi în somn, s-a ridicat și a plecat, iar Aristodem, cum îi era obiceiul, s-a luat după el. Socrate s-a dus la Liceu și, după ce și-a făcut baia, și-a petrecut ziua ca pe oricare altă zi. Către seară a luat-o spre casă, să se odihnească” (223d, p.168-169).
Later he will observe that physical beauty in any person is closely akin to physical beauty in any other, and that, if he is to make beauty of outward form the object of his quest, it is great folly not to acknowledge that the beauty exhibited in all bodies is one and the same; when he has reached this conclusion he will become a lover of all physical beauty, and will relax the intensity of his passion for one particular person, because he will realise that such a passion is beneath him and of small account. The next stage is for him to reckon beauty of soul more valuable than beauty of body...
'The servant brought me water to wash before I sat down, and another servant came and said that Socrates had taken up position in a neighbour's front porch, and was standing there, deaf to all the servant's entreaties to come in. "What an odd thing," said Agathon. "Go and call him again and don't take no for an answer."
"No," I said, "let him alone. It's a way he has. He goes apart sometimes and stands still wherever he happens to be. He will come presently, I am sure; don't bother him, but let him be."