Kitap 2
8.70
Some one brought him a knotty problem with the request that he would untie the knot. Why, you simpleton, said he, do you want it untied, seeing that it causes trouble enough as it is? It is better, he said, to be a beggar than to be uneducated; the one needs money, the others need to be humanized. One day that he was reviled, he tried to slip away; the other pursued him, asking, Why do you run away? Because, said he, as it is your privilege to use foul language, so it is my privilege not to listen. In answer to one who remarked that he always saw philosophers at rich men’s doors, he said, So, too, physicians are in attendance on those who are sick, but no one for that reason would prefer being sick to being a physician.
8.71
It happened once that he set sail for Corinth and, being overtaken by a storm, he was in great consternation. Some one said, We plain men are not alarmed, and are you philosophers turned cowards? To this he replied, The lives at stake in the two cases are not comparable. When some one gave himself airs for his wide learning, this is what he said: As those who eat most and take the most exercise are not better in health than those who restrict themselves to what they require, so too it is not wide reading but useful reading that tends to excellence. An advocate, having pleaded for him and won the case, thereupon put the question, What good did Socrates do you? Thus much, was the reply, that what you said of me in your speech was true.
