“Let us then, in the first place, be careful of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no truth or health or soundness in any arguments at all; but let us rather say that there is as yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves like men and do our best to gain health—you and all other men with a view to the whole of your future life, and I myself with a view to death. For at this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a philosopher; like the vulgar I am only a partisan. For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.”

“The soul of a philosopher.... will make herself a calm of passion, and follow reason, and dwell in her, beholding the true and the divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence derive nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to be freed from human ills.”

Plato, in the dialogue known as The Phaedo, puts these words into the mouth of Socrates, who has been sentenced to death because he will not renounce philosophy and his own mission of encouraging interest in it among the young men of Athens. The Phaedo is a challenge to all who read it to devote themselves to philosophy, Catholic students not excepted.