Apology

After reading a few pages I was thinking that this book is far too good to read when you sufffer from insomnia and desperately need a good night's sleep. Turns out I was wrong. The beggining was a bit misleading. Closer to the middle of the book it actually got quite intriguing and kept me awake till the end.
Here are two short quotes that I liked. I would attribute them to Plato, but I'm not sure I would be right in doing so, since after all this piece is Plato's version of the speech Socrates delivered in his defense.
“For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and perhaps claim to be wiser than they are; that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know.”
“For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth.”