Notes on The Real Trial of Socrates


 * In attempting to convey the political, social and spiritual conditions of Athens in decline, I have ‘transferred’ the past to the present and have made use of several anachronisms to illustrate their common elements. - from the author's note


 * “Socrates is denounced because he is weak and poor, the price asked... his death!!” That is what the indictment should really say!


 * The mob... the opinion of the many... is like a flee- bitten dog lying on a dung-heap chained to a post in the sun. It sleeps all day, scratching its mangy hide, rushing and barking savagely at passers-by, lest they unfetter its chains.


 * I would kiss the fat hands of priests in front of others, just to spite them: “Just look at how that old fool outdoes us in hypocrisy!” they would murmur.


 * What do you say? I was a threat to the Democracy? Me a threat... and you the Democracy! Individuals who pose a threat are not put on trial, gentlemen, they are either worshipped slavishly or murdered with duplicity.


 * The oligarchy obstructed the freedom of speech and the teaching of rhetoric, while you attempt to obstruct the freedom of thought and the teaching of philosophy!


 * Your Democracy, as you can see, is little more than Tyranny in masquerade.


 * The strongest have always been, and always will be, the thieves.


 * You are free! Keep your hands-up! Free to live as you wish, to toil and to save, to get drunk, to dance, to bear children and... to die. In exchange we shall teach you... the Truth! We shall provide you with a rich imagination and a benevolent heart. We will give you an immortal soul! And whoever of you has a hankering to compose poems, he is free to do so, and to formulate theories that he may be extolled by later generations! You the people shall be sovereign! We will but only guide you... and care for your safety, your honour and your belongings. In short... your freedom. And you shall work, as much as you like, whenever you like and at whatever you like. We shall provide you with work... it’s enough that you have work... and you will give us your earnings. And lest you think that you are being wronged by us, we too shall pay the same dues to the State... in other words, to ourselves!


 * We forbid you only this one thing: to steal from one another... lest you steal from us!


 * For when I realized that all those around me possessed neither soul nor spirit, but were instead little more that bloated slugs, that my life had no purpose other than death, I neither sought-out happiness nor tried to better myself... I already was! I would succumb slowly and ever so gently to my weaknesses... and to my strengths! Rambling about, I would mock you openly... and myself privately... trying to forget the present, the past and the future... in other words, I was trying to forget death!


 * Whoever sleeps heavily and eats lightly... vegetables, beans, olives and barley-bread... does not suffer from flatulence. His bones don’t rust and his blood doesn’t sour... nor does he break- out in sores, boils and rashes.


 * And who was this Mr. So-and-So? The sophist. The politician. The poet. Those who considered themselves all-knowing and took great pride in telling lies. I would stupefy them. Not so as to make myself appear superior... It’s not worth the effort to be either first or last among men who are last but who deem themselves as being among the first. I’d squash them just as we would gnats... for neither do we seek to improve them (the gnats, that is), nor do we desire to save our neighbours from them... let alone the future generations of Greeks!


 * it is the price that determines the true worth of any merchandise. I, on the other hand, would give away my humble knowledge free of charge and nobody would take it... which means, of course, that it was worthless.


 * Power and war are inseparable you see.


 * First, with my youthful mind, and later still when it had matured, I would attempt to always find that singular position which inevitability applied to every situation. In other words, that which is everlasting and unchanging... beyond time, place and people... the Absolute.


 * But Ideas? In these, gentlemen, you must first believe before you can see them. It is the same as when some old woman is possessed with a religious mania while praying at the altar of some god and, pointing high, suddenly begins shouting: “There He is! Floating in the Heavens! I can see Him shaking His sceptre!” All the other women gathered there also witness this divine apparition and hear with their own ears the stern warnings of the god.


 * There will come a time when the ‘better’ will pay the charlatans dearly to work their miracles


 * Socrates mocks the gods and provokes their awesome power against our State. It is because of him that the gods have forsaken Athens and have abandoned their holy shrines on the Acropolis, leaving the City to the mercy of the Furies.


 * The Flock could not survive a single moment without the Wolves... nor the Wolves without atheists and traitors.


 * It was I, after all, who taught you to be contemptuous and disloyal in the name of the gods and the laws!


 * The more a person is humbled, the more indecisive he becomes... and the more indecisive he becomes, the less he is able to breathe, think or be roused to anger. It requires great courage and self- confidence to stand against injustice... even more so to commit an injustice!


 * Schools are required! And these schools shall be built by the wrongdoers themselves. Do you know why? Because our cause is good and just and noble!


 * I would truly have been dangerous to the public order... to “the interests of the better”... had I lived! [...] for truly there is no greater villainy and betrayal than to speak the Truth!


 * [O]ur shameless philosophy teaches us that you were born into slavery! But neither the gods nor nature have ordained that the seed of your fathers condemn you to such a life.