633–634
Athenian
Ath. At present do we apply the term bad to the man who is inferior to pains, or to him also who is inferior to pleasures?
Clinias
Clin. To the man who is inferior to pleasures more than to the other, in my opinion. All of us, indeed, when we speak of a man who is shamefully self-inferior, mean one who is mastered by pleasures rather than one who is mastered by pains.
Athenian
Ath. Then surely the lawgiver of Zeus and he of Apollo did not enact by law a lame kind of courage, able only to defend itself on the left and unable to resist attractions and allurements on the right, but rather one able to resist on both sides?
Clinias
Clin. On both sides, as I would maintain.
Athenian
Ath. Let us, then, mention once more the State institutions in both your countries which give men a taste of pleasures instead of shunning them,—just as they did not shun pains but plunged their citizens into the midst of them and so compelled them, or induced them by rewards, to master them. Where, pray, in your laws is the same policy adopted in regard to pleasures? Let us declare what regulation of yours there is which causes the same men to be courageous toward pains and pleasures alike, conquering where they ought to conquer and in no wise worsted by their nearest and most dangerous enemies.