They are unwilling to allow that the Spartan and Cretan lawgivers can have been mistaken in honouring courage as the first part of virtue, and are puzzled at hearing for the first time that 'Goods are only evil to the evil.' Several times they are on the point of quarrelling, and by an effort learn to restrain their natural feeling (compare Shakespeare, Henry V, act iii.sc.

2).

In Book vii., the Lacedaemonian expresses a momentary irritation at the accusation which the Athenian brings against the Spartan institutions, of encouraging licentiousness in their women, but he is reminded by the Cretan that the permission to criticize them freely has been given, and cannot be retracted.

His only criterion of truth is the authority of the Spartan lawgiver; he is 'interested,' in the novel speculations of the Athenian, but inclines to prefer the ordinances of Lycurgus.
The three interlocutors all of them speak in the character of old men, which forms a pleasant bond of union between them.

They have the feelings of old age about youth, about the state, about human things in general.