admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and
injustice the defect of the soul?

That has been admitted.

Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man
will live ill?

That is what your argument proves.

And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the
reverse of happy?

Certainly.

Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?

So be it.

But happiness and not misery is profitable.

Of course.

Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable
than justice.

Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea.

For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle
towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been
well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure
snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table,
he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I
gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought
at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away
to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and
when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of
justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And
the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all.
For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know
whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is
happy or unhappy.

BOOK II.

With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the
discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For
Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at
Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said
to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to
have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?

I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.

Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:--How would
you arrange goods--are there not some which we welcome for their
own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example,
harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time,
although nothing follows from them?

I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied.

Is there not also a