That also is a sentence which will be admitted by every one
to speak of me, and to apply to me.

STRANGER: We agreed that every sentence must necessarily have a certain
quality.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And what is the quality of each of these two sentences?

THEAETETUS: The one, as I imagine, is false, and the other true.

STRANGER: The true says what is true about you?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And the false says what is other than true?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And therefore speaks of things which are not as if they were?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And say that things are real of you which are not; for, as we
were saying, in regard to each thing or person, there is much that is
and much that is not.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: The second of the two sentences which related to you was first
of all an example of the shortest form consistent with our definition.

THEAETETUS: Yes, this was implied in recent admission.

STRANGER: And, in the second place, it related to a subject?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: Who must be you, and can be nobody else?

THEAETETUS: Unquestionably.

STRANGER: And it would be no sentence at all if there were no subject,
for, as we proved, a sentence which has no subject is impossible.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, and
not-being as being, such a combination of nouns and verbs is really and
truly false discourse.

THEAETETUS: Most true.

STRANGER: And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now proved
to exist in our minds both as true and false.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of what
they are, and in what they severally differ from one another.

THEAETETUS: Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain.

STRANGER: Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that
what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with
herself?

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is
audible is called speech?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And we know that there exists in speech...

THEAETETUS: What exists?

STRANGER: Affirmation.

THEAETETUS: Yes, we know it.

STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in
the mind only, have you any other name by which to call it but opinion?

THEAETETUS: There can be no other nam