er hand, who was well fitted, he urged on. He
roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general also, pointing out to him
the cocks of Midias the barber fighting those of Callias. He said it
was strange that every man could tell easily how many sheep he had,
but could not call by name the friends whom he had acquired, so
negligent were men in that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great
pains to captious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to
manage sophists--but men, never!" For he thought hair-splitting on
such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus.'

When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might make a profit
on them, he did not take them.

He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon also says
in his 'Symposium.' He used to say, too, that there was but one
good--knowledge; and one evil--ignorance. Wealth and birth, he said,
had no value, but were on the contrary wholly an evil. So when some
one told him Antisthenes's mother was a Thracian, "Did you think,"
quoth he, "so fine a man must be the child of two Athenians?" When
Phaedo had been captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade
Crito ransom him, and made him a philosopher.

He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre, saying
there was no absurdity in learning what one did not know. He used to
dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise helpful to health. This
Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium.'

He used to say that his Daemon foretold future events: and that he knew
nothing, except that very fact that he did know nothing. Those who
bought at a great price what was out of season, he said, had no hope
of living till the season came around. Once being asked what was
virtue in a young man, he said, "To avoid excess in all things." He
used to say one should study geometry (surveying) just enough to be
able to measure land in buying and selling it.

When Euripides in the 'Auge' said of virtue:--

"These things were better left to lie untouched,"

he rose up and left the theatre, saying it was absurd to think it
proper to seek for a slave if he was not to be found, but to let
virtue perish unregarded. When his advice was asked whether to marry
or not, he said, "Whichever you do, you will regret it!" He used to
say that he marveled that those who made stone statues took pains to
make the stone as like the man as possible, but took none with
themselves, that they might not be like the