Kitap 4
5.8
And is it not likely that self-control causes actions the opposite of those that are due to incontinence?Certainly.Then is not the cause of the opposite actions presumably a very great blessing?Yes, presumably.Consequently we may presume, Euthydemus, that self-control is a very great blessing to a man?We may presume so, Socrates.
5.9
Has it ever occurred to you, Euthydemus — ?What?That though pleasure is the one and only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces pleasure so surely as self-control?How so?Incontinence will not let them endure hunger or thirst or desire or lack of sleep, which are the sole causes of pleasure in eating and drinking and sexual indulgence, and in resting and sleeping, after a time of waiting and resistance until the moment comes when these will give the greatest possible satisfaction; and thus she prevents them from experiencing any pleasure worthy to be mentioned in the most elementary and recurrent forms of enjoyment. But self-control alone causes them to endure the sufferings I have named, and therefore she alone causes them to experience any pleasure worth mentioning in such enjoyments.What you say is entirely true.
5.10
Moreover, the delights of learning something good and excellent, and of studying some of the means whereby a man knows how to regulate his body well and manage his household successfully, to be useful to his friends and city and to defeat his enemies — knowledge that yields not only very great benefits but very great pleasures — these are the delights of the self-controlled; but the incontinent have no part in them. For who, should we say, has less concern with these than he who has no power of cultivating them because all his serious purposes are centred in the pleasures that lie nearest?
