Dialogue

 1 Repub|   Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling
 2 Repub|      meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should
 3 Repub|    danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable
 4 Repub|        to be. ~Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter.
 5 Repub|       let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or
 6 Repub|        and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other
 7 Repub|  unbecoming the character of our guardians. ~Utterly unbecoming. ~And
 8 Repub|       him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral
 9 Repub|     maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate,
10 Repub|           And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these
11 Repub|          are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they
12 Repub|       have most the character of guardians? ~Yes. ~And to this end
13 Repub| selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole
14 Repub|         inquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction
15 Repub|       noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the
16 Repub|          in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed.
17 Repub|        men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated
18 Repub|         they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the
19 Repub|      raised to honor, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle
20 Repub|   neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey
21 Repub|        and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead
22 Repub|          appointed by us for our guardians concerning their houses
23 Repub|      that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest
24 Repub|       compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which
25 Repub|      will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our
26 Repub|        to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government
27 Repub|        only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn
28 Repub|        to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and
29 Repub|        whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest
30 Repub|    latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all
31 Repub|          said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they
32 Repub|       have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted
33 Repub|   degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating
34 Repub|       elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower
35 Repub|          own. ~Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations
36 Repub|          is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found
37 Repub|        now describing as perfect guardians. ~And what is the name which
38 Repub|          city more of these true guardians or more smiths? ~The smiths,
39 Repub|          numerous. ~Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the
40 Repub|          that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted,
41 Repub|          is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage
42 Repub|      that the men were to be the guardians and watch-dogs of the herd. ~
43 Repub|    continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to
44 Repub|        the selection of the male guardians determined by differences
45 Repub|     founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up
46 Repub|         not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? ~
47 Repub|        Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue
48 Repub|      alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have
49 Repub|            that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their
50 Repub|          to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if
51 Repub|        command in the other; the guardians themselves must obey the
52 Repub|       danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking
53 Repub|         done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. ~They
54 Repub|         suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time
55 Repub|           according to which the guardians of our State are to have
56 Repub|            But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other
57 Repub|          State, will be that the guardians will have a community of
58 Repub|          were affirming-that the guardians were not to have houses
59 Repub|          their true character of guardians. ~Right, he replied. ~Both
60 Repub|          to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the
61 Repub|       any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty
62 Repub|       want of peace. ~And as the guardians will never quarrel among
63 Repub|         accused us of making our guardians unhappy-they had nothing
64 Repub|       divided, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that
65 Repub|         make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning
66 Repub|    elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in
67 Repub| practising their duties than our guardians will be? ~The idea is ridiculous,
68 Repub|      good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men"? ~
69 Repub|      enact this law also for our guardians: that they are neither to
70 Repub|        our State-let them be our guardians. ~Very good. ~Neither, I
71 Repub|            And shall they be our guardians when there are others who,
72 Repub|       whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the
73 Repub|        consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how
74 Repub|      gymnastics, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit,
75 Repub|          be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other
76 Repub|         of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law
77 Repub|          they come into power as guardians they will soon be found
78 Repub|         gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels. ~None better. ~