[9] Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that there is a single virtue practised among mankind merely in order that the brave and good should fare no better than the base ones of the earth.

Men do not forego the pleasures of the moment to say good-bye to all joy for evermore--no, this self-control is a training, so that we may reap the fruits of a larger joy in the time to come.

A man will toil day and night to make himself an orator, yet oratory is not the one aim of his existence: his hope is to influence men by his eloquence and thus achieve some noble end.

So too with us, and those like us, who are drilled in the arts of war: we do not give our labours in order to fight for ever, endlessly and hopelessly, we hope that we too one day, when we have proved our mettle, may win and wear for ourselves and for our city the threefold ornament of wealth, of happiness, of honour.

[10] And if there should be some who have worked hard all their lives and suddenly old-age, they find, has stolen on them unawares, and taken away their powers before they have gathered in the fruit of all their toil, such men seem to me like those who desire to be thrifty husbandmen, and who sow well and plant wisely, but when the time of harvest comes let the fruit drop back ungarnered into the soil whence it sprang.